Navaho Houses, Part 2 | Page 8

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.
In early times, when the organization of the people into clans was more clearly defined, a section of territory was parceled out and held as a clan ground, and some of the existing clans took their names from such localities. Legends are still current among the old men of these early days before the introduction of sheep and goats and horses by the Spaniards, when the people lived by the chase and on wild fruits, grass seeds, and pi?on nuts, and such supplies as they could plunder from their neighbors. Indian corn or maize was apparently known from the earliest time, but so long as plunder and the supply of game continued sufficient, little effort was made to grow it. Later as the tribe increased and game became scarcer, the cultivation of corn increased, but until ten years ago more grain was obtained in trade from the Pueblos than was grown in the Navaho country. There are now no defined boundaries to the ancient clan lands, but they are still recognized in a general way and such a tract is spoken of as "my mother's land."
Families cling to certain localities and sections not far apart, and when compelled, by reason of failure of springs or too close cropping of the grass, to go to other neighborhoods, they do not move to the new place as a matter of right, but of courtesy; and the movement is never undertaken until satisfactory arrangements have been concluded with the families already living there.
Some of the Pueblo tribes, the Hopi or Moki, for example, have been subjected to much the same conditions as the Navaho; but in this case similarity of conditions has produced very dissimilar results, that is, as regards house structures. The reasons, however, are obvious, and lie principally in two distinct causes--antecedent habits and personal character. The Navaho are a fine, athletic race of men, living a free and independent life. They are without chiefs, in the ordinary meaning of the term, although there are men in the tribe who occupy prominent positions and exercise a kind of semiauthority--chiefs by courtesy, as it were. Ever since we have known them, now some three hundred years, they have been hunters, warriors, and robbers. When hunting, war, and robbery ceased to supply them with the necessaries of life they naturally became a pastoral people, for the flocks and the pasture lands were already at hand. It is only within the last few years that they have shown indication of developing into an agricultural people. With their previous habits only temporary habitations were possible, and when they became a pastoral people the same habitations served their purpose better than any other. The hog��ns of ten or fifteen years ago, and to a certain extent the hog��ns of today, are practically the same as they were three hundred years ago. There has been no reason for a change and consequently no change has been made.
On the other hand, the Hopi came into the country with a comparatively elaborate system of house structures, previously developed elsewhere. They are an undersized, puny race, content with what they have and asking only to be left alone. They are in no sense warriors, although there is no doubt that they have fought bitterly among themselves within historic times. Following the Spanish invasion they also received sheep and goats, but their previous habits prevented them from becoming a pastoral people like the Navaho, and their main reliance for food is, and always was, on horticultural products. Living, as they did, in fixed habitations and in communities, the pastoral life was impossible to them, and their marked timidity would prevent the abandonment of their communal villages.
Under modern conditions these two methods of life, strongly opposed to each other, although practiced in the same region and under the same physical conditions, are drawing a little closer together. Under the strong protecting arm of the Government the Hopi are losing a little of their timidity and are gradually abandoning their villages on the mesa summits and building individual houses in the valleys below. Incidentally they are increasing their flocks and herds. On the other hand, under the stress of modern conditions, the Navaho are surely, although very slowly, turning to agriculture, and apparently show some disposition to form small communities.