Navaho Houses, Part 2 | Page 6

Yet the Navaho are by no means nomads, and the region within which a given family moves back and forth is extremely circumscribed.
In a general way the movements of a family are regulated by the condition of the grass and the supply of water. In a dry season many of the small springs cease to flow at an early date in the summer. Moreover, if a flock is kept too long in one locality, the grass is almost destroyed by close cropping, forcing the abandonment of that particular place for two or three years. When this occurs, the place will recover and the grass become good again if left entirely undisturbed for several years.
The usual practice is to take the flocks up into the mountains or on the high plateaus during the summer, quartering them near some spring or small stream, and when the snow comes they are moved down to the lower foothills or out into the valleys. In the winter both shepherds and sheep depend on the snow for their water supply, and by this means an immense tract of country, which otherwise would be a perfect waste, is utilized. As the snow disappears from the valleys the flocks are gradually driven back again into the mountains.
The heavy fall of snow in the mountains and its slow melting in spring makes that region far more fertile and grassy than the valleys, and were it possible to remain there throughout the year doubtless many families would do so. As it is, however, the feed is covered too deeply for the sheep to reach it, and during several months heavy snowdrifts make communication very difficult and at times impossible. In a few favored localities--usually small, well-sheltered valleys here and there in the mountains--some families may remain throughout the winter, but as a rule, at the first approach of the cold season and before the first snow flies there is a general exodus to the low-lying valleys and the low mesa regions, and the mountains are practically abandoned for a time.
During the rainy season pools and little lakes of water are formed all over the flat country, lasting sometimes several weeks. Advantage is taken of the opportunity thus afforded and the flocks are driven out on the plains and grazed in the vicinity of the water so long as the supply holds out, but as this is seldom prolonged more than a few weeks it is not surprising that the house erected by the head of the family should be of a very temporary nature. In fact the most finished house structures of these people must be temporary rather than permanent so long as the conditions sketched above prevail; in other words, so long as they depend principally on their sheep.
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 hog��ns together is remarkable. There are perhaps more hog��ns 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 Ts��gi, 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 hog��n 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 pi?on grove near a good fuel supply and not too far from water. A house is very seldom built close to a spring--perhaps a