Native Americans: 22 Books on History, Mythology, Culture & Linguistic Studies. James Mooney
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Название: Native Americans: 22 Books on History, Mythology, Culture & Linguistic Studies

Автор: James Mooney

Издательство: Bookwire

Жанр: Документальная литература

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isbn: 9788027245475

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СКАЧАТЬ chiefs on the fourth day after the gods and the animals came up into this world; diligent search was unrewarded until two of the searchers looked down through the hole and espied her sitting beside a stream in the lower world combing her hair. Four days later death came to these searchers, so that now the Navaho will go to any extreme to avoid coming into contact with spirits of the dead, tsí̆ndi, which they believe travel anywhere and everywhere at will, often doing evil, but never good. The body is prepared for burial previous to death, and is never touched afterward if it can be avoided.

      To the end that the spirit may begin aright its journey to the afterworld, the body is taken out of the hogán through an opening specially made in the wall on the northern side, for the doorway always faces the east. The immediate relatives of the deceased avoid looking at the corpse if possible. Friends of the family or distant relations usually take charge of the burial. A couple of men dig a grave on a hillside and carry the body there wrapped in blankets. No monument is erected to mark the spot. Before the body is taken out, the hogán is vacated and all necessary utensils are carried away. The two men who bury the remains of the former occupant carefully obliterate with a cedar bough all footprints that the relations of the deceased may have made in the hogán, in order to conceal from the departed spirit the direction in which they went should it return to do them harm. The premises are completely abandoned and the house often burned. Never will a Navaho occupy a tsí̆ndi hogán, and when travelling at night he will take a roundabout trail in order to avoid one. Formerly horses were killed at the grave. So recently as 1906 a horse was sacrificed within sight of a Catholic mission on the reservation, that its spirit might accompany that of a dead woman to the afterworld. This horse was the property of the woman, and her husband, fearing to retain it, yet not daring to kill it himself, called upon another to do so.

      History

       Table of Contents

      Although raiders and plunderers since known to history, the Navaho cannot be designated a warring tribe, for however courageous they may be, their lack of political integrity has ever been an obstacle to military organization. They never have had a tribal chief, properly so called, while their many leading men could never command more than a small following. Manuelito, who was acclaimed head-chief in 1855 at the conference with Governor Meriwether for the purpose of negotiating a treaty, probably had a greater following than any other Navaho in historic times, but he could never have relied on a majority of the warriors of his widely scattered tribe. Although divided into many bands, like the Apache, the Navaho, unlike them, were not engaged in ceaseless depredation, their sporadic raids having been conducted by small parties quite independent of any organized tribal movement. They preferred rather to follow a pastoral life. With their large population, had they possessed the Apache's insatiable desire for war and a political organization that permitted concerted action, the subjugation of the Southwest would have been far more difficult than it proved to be.

      While the statement is made that the Navaho were never a warlike people, it must not be presumed that they never caused our Government trouble. Those familiar with the Navaho admire their energy, industry, independence, and cheerful disposition, and their ability to attack the problems of life in a way that no other wandering tribe has exercised. On the other hand, cunning and trickery are among their characteristics, and they are expert horse-thieves. With the Indian, as well as with civilized man, honesty may be interpreted in various ways. If one should leave his camp equipage unprotected in a tent, it would be entirely safe from all except the renegade, already recognized by his people as a thief. But if one should turn his back and later find that his horse had been run off by a Navaho in the hope of being rewarded for returning it, the tribesmen of the raider would regard him as one whose cunning should be emulated.

Illustration: Navaho Hogan

      Navaho Hogan

      For a long period prior to the acquisition from Mexico of the territory now forming the northern portion of Arizona and New Mexico, which, since first known, has been occupied in part by the Navaho, the tribe had been in the habit of making raids on the New Mexican Indian pueblos and the white settlements along the Rio Grande, chiefly for the capture of livestock, although both Indians and Mexicans also were taken and enslaved. The Mexicans lost no opportunity to retaliate, with the result that scattered throughout their villages in the valley of the Rio Grande there were more captives of Navaho blood than there were Mexican prisoners among the Navaho tribe; but in the matter of sheep, cattle, and horses, the Navaho were far ahead in the game of thievery, and even boasted that they could easily have exterminated the Mexicans had they not needed them as herders of their stolen flocks. In consequence, bitter enmity early arose between the Mexicans and the Navaho, which reached its height about the time Col. Stephen W. Kearny took possession of the territory in behalf of the United States in 1846.

      In the year named a military expedition was sent into the Navaho country for the purpose of making a treaty of peace and friendship with this marauding tribe; but this treaty, like several others that followed, was soon broken, and the raids continued as before. In 1858 the troubles arising from the plunderings became especially severe and led to several other expeditions, but with little result. The problem became a serious one in 1861, when the Civil War necessitated the withdrawal of troops from the frontier, leaving the way open to the devastation of the country by the Navaho and Mescaleros, until General Carleton, who assumed command of the military forces in New Mexico in 1862, formulated a policy to thoroughly subdue the Navaho and to transfer them to the Bosque Redondo, on the Rio Pecos in New Mexico, where Fort Sumner had been established, and there hold them as prisoners of war until some other plan could be devised. His plan was successfully carried out. By the spring of 1863 four hundred Mescaleros were under guard on the new reservation, and by the close of that year about two hundred Navaho prisoners had either been transferred thither or were on the way. Early in 1864 Col. Kit Carson led his volunteers to the Cañon de Chelly, the Navaho stronghold, where in a fight he succeeded in killing twenty-three, capturing thirty-four, and compelling two hundred to surrender. The backbone of the hostility was now broken, and before the beginning of 1865 about seven thousand, later increased to 8491, were under military control within the new reservation. But the Bosque Redondo proved unhealthful and disappointing as a reservation, while its maintenance was costly to the Government. A treaty was therefore made with the Navaho in 1868, one of the provisions of which was the purchase of fifteen thousand sheep to replenish their exterminated flocks. In July 7304 Navaho, the remainder having died or escaped, arrived at Fort Wingate on the way to their old home, where they have since lived in peace and prosperity.

      Mythology - Creation Myth

       Table of Contents

Illustration: Navaho Still Life

      Navaho Still Life