Another result of these conditions is that each family lives by itself and, as it were, on its own ground. Large communities are impossible, and while there are instances where eight or ten families occupy some place of exceptionally favorable location, these are rare. In fact to see even three or four hogáns together is remarkable. There are perhaps more hogáns in Canyon Chelly than in any other one locality, but the people who live here are regarded by the other Navaho as poor, because they own but few sheep and horses and depend principally on horticulture for their subsistence. Incidentally it may be stated that horses are well esteemed by the Navaho as an article of food, and that the large herds which some of them own are not so wholly useless as they appear to the casual traveler.
Canyon Chelly, which the Navaho call Tségi, contains several small streams and numerous patches of arable land on the bottoms. The conditions here are exceptionally favorable for horticulture; indeed, the numerous remains of cliff dwellings which are found in the canyon would show this if other evidence were lacking. It has long been famous among the Navaho as the horticultural center of the tribe, and for its peach crops, derived from thousands of trees planted in sheltered nooks. In the summer scattered members of the various families or clans gather there by hundreds from every part of the reservation to feast together for a week or two on green corn, melons, and peaches.
As a rule, however, each hogán stands by itself, and it is usually hidden away so effectually that the traveler who is not familiar with the customs of the people might journey for days and not see half a dozen of them. The spot chosen for a dwelling place is either some sheltered nook in a mesa or a southward slope on the edge of a piñon grove near a good fuel supply and not too far from water. A house is very seldom built close to a spring—perhaps a survival of the habit which prevailed when the people were a hunting tribe and kept away from the water holes in order not to disturb the game which frequented them.
So prevalent is this custom of placing the houses in out-of-the-way places that the casual traveler receives the impression that the region over which he has passed is practically uninhabited. He may, perhaps, meet half a dozen Indians in a day, or he may meet none, and at sunset when he camps he will probably hear the bark of a dog in the distance, or he may notice on the mountain side a pillar of smoke like that arising from his own camp fire. This is all that he will see to indicate the existence of other life than his own, yet the tribe numbers over 12,000 souls, and it is probable that there was no time during the day when there were not several pairs of eyes looking at him, and were he to fire his gun the report would probably be heard by several hundred persons. Probably this custom of half-concealed habitations is a survival from the time when the Navaho were warriors and plunderers, and lived in momentary expectation of reprisals on the part of their victims.
Although the average Navaho family may be said to be in almost constant movement, they are not at all nomads, yet the term has frequently been applied to them. Each family moves back and forth within a certain circumscribed area, and the smallness of this area is one of the most remarkable things in Navaho life.
Ninety per cent of the Navaho one meets on the reservation are mounted and usually riding at a gallop, apparently bent on some important business at a far-distant point. But a closer acquaintance will develop the fact that there are many grown men in the tribe who are entirely ignorant of the country 30 or 40 miles from where they were born. It is an exceptional Navaho who knows the country well 60 miles about his birthplace, or the place where he may be living, usually the same thing. It is doubtful whether there are more than a few dozens of Navaho living west of the mountains who know anything of the country to the east, and vice versa. This ignorance of what we may term the immediate vicinity of a place is experienced by every traveler who has occasion to make a long journey over the reservation and employs a guide. But he discovers it only by personal experience, for the guide will seldom admit his ignorance and travels on, depending on meeting other Indians living in that vicinity who will give him the required local knowledge. This peculiar trait illustrates the extremely restricted area within which each “nomad” family lives.
Now and then one may meet a family moving, for such movements are quite common. Usually each family has at least two locations—not definite places, but regions—and they move from one to the other as the necessity arises. In such cases they take everything with them, including flocks of sheep and goats and herds of ponies and cattle, if they possess any. The qasçíŋ, as the head of the family is called, drives the ponies and cattle, the former a degenerate lot of little beasts not much larger than an ass, but capable of carrying a man in an emergency 100 miles in a day. He carries his arms, for the coyotes trouble the sheep at night, two or three blankets, and a buckskin on his saddle, but nothing more. It is his special duty to keep the ponies moving and in the trail. Following him comes a flock of sheep and goats, bleating and nibbling at the bushes and grass as they slowly trot along, urged by the dust-begrimed squaw and her children. Several of the more tractable ponies carry packs of household effects stuffed into buckskin and cotton bags or wrapped in blankets, a little corn for food, the rude blanket loom of the woman, baskets, and wicker bottles, and perhaps a scion of the house, too young to walk, perched on top of all. Such a caravan is always accompanied by several dogs—curs of unknown breed, but invaluable aids to the women and children in herding the flocks.
Under the Navaho system descent is in the female line. The children belong to the mother, and likewise practically all property except horses and cattle. Sheep and goats belong exclusively to her, and the head of the family can not sell a sheep to a passing traveler without first obtaining the consent and approval of his wife. Hence in such a movement as that sketched above the flocks are looked after by the women, while under normal circumstances, when the family has settled down and is at home, the care of the flocks devolves almost entirely on the little children, so young sometimes that they can just toddle about.
The waters are usually regarded by the Navaho as the common property of the tribe, but the cultivable lands in the vicinity are held by the individuals and families as exclusively their own. Their flocks occupy all the surrounding pasture, so that virtually many of the springs come to be regarded as the property of the people who plant nearest to them.