As everyone knows, the reservation is a part of our famous “painted desert”. It is exceedingly diversified in character, the landscape varying from high mesas to deep canons; from towering mountains to stretches of desert. Fortunately, no mineral deposits aside from coal have been discovered. On three separate occasions, in the ’60’s, ’70’s and ’80’s, prospectors, in defiance of law, entered the Navaho reservation in search of gold, silver or copper. When I was conducting the cliff-dweller expeditions along the San Juan in 1892 and again in 1897, several of the “oldtimers” informed me that these prospectors were never heard of afterward. Accompanying the last expedition, there were several men from north of Durango, Colorado, and their friends threatened reprisals on the Navaho, alleging that the Indians had killed these prospectors. However, aside from talk, nothing was done, the men never returned, and the Indians remained in peaceful possession of their estate. It was considered, in the ’70’s and ’80’s “bad medicine” for white men to depart from certain Navaho trails!
The Navaho reservation embraces 11,887,793 acres, of which approximately 719,360 acres belong to the Santa Fe Pacific Railroad Company, and approximately 55,400 acres to the State of Arizona, leaving 11,113,033 acres. Consequently, if you take the very conservative figure of 25,000 Navahos and 11,113,033 acres belonging to them, you would have 444 acres to the person. But as four-fifths is high, dry mesa or absolute desert, the statement often made that each Indian might have 444 acres is misleading. Each Indian could not have (average) more than twelve or fifteen acres of pasture land.
The Navaho are the only large body of Indians in the United States who keep up ancient customs, arts and ceremonies. They not only enjoy a great variety of games and sports, but they are probably the best and strongest long-distance runners in America. Mr. Lipps has given a very entertaining account of their games, etc., in his book, to which I have referred on a previous page.
They are exceedingly adverse to burying their dead and are quite willing that white people should perform this service for them. Of all the remaining Indian tribes, they furnish the best field for investigation at the present time. Much has been written concerning them, but it will require additional researches in order to complete a satisfactory study of their ethnology.
On the death of the head of the family, his property “descends to his brothers, sisters, uncles and aunts to the exclusion of his wife and children, a custom which is often very harmful in its effects, since if the wife should happen not to be possessed of some property in her own right she and her children are made to suffer penury and want.”[[47]]
In past years a number of the older men possessed two or three wives. Polygamy was to be expected, for the Mormons settled north of the San Juan, (Utah), long before white settlers came from the East. Although the Navaho probably believed in polygamy long ago, only those who were well-to-do had more than one wife, and the increase in polygamous marriages was undoubtedly due to the example set by the Mormons.
The Government has taken steps to wipe out this practice and no more plural marriages are permitted. Men having more than one wife have been encouraged to give up their plural wives, and this has been done in some cases, mainly where there are no children by the marriage.
NAVAHO SILVERSMITH AND HIS OUTFIT
The Navaho are invariably kind and considerate to each other, and their family life is of higher plane than among most Indians. The children are seldom punished, for the good reason that they do not merit punishment. In the case of very old persons, it is sometimes observed that the children do not love and protect them as completely as might be expected.