Navajo Nation

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Image:Navajo hunters outside Sam Days Trading Post year 1887.jpg

The Navajo Nation (Navajo: Naabeehó Dine'é) is a sovereign Native American Tribe of Indians, traditionally known as, Diné. The Navajo Indian Reservation covers about 27,000 square miles (70,000 square kilometres) of land, occupying all of northeastern Arizona, and extending into Utah and New Mexico, and is the largest land area assigned primarily to a Native American jurisdiction within the United States. The 2000 census reported 298,215 Navajos living throughout the United States, of which 173,987 were living within the Navajo Nation boundaries. 131,166 lived in Arizona. 17,512 of these lived in Maricopa County, which includes the city of Phoenix. Because the Navajo Nation encompasses land in three states, its Division of Economic Development extracts census data for the Navajo Nation as a whole, and sends a representative to the Census Board. Another group lives on the Colorado River Indian Tribes reservation along the Colorado River in California and Arizona.

Each tribe establishes its own requirements for being an enrolled tribal member, which is usually based on "blood quantum." The Navajo Nation requires a blood quantum of one-fourth for a person to be an enrolled tribal member and to receive a Certificate of Indian Blood (CIB). In comparison, some tribes require a one-thirtysecond blood quantum for issuing a CIB. Recently, the Navajo Tribal Council voted down a proposal to reduce the blood quantum to one-eighth, which would have effectively doubled the number of individuals qualified to be enrolled Navajo tribal members.

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Geography

Image:Canyon de Chelly.jpg The Nation's boundaries abut the Ute Nation at the Four Corners Monument landmark and stretch across the Colorado Plateau into Arizona, Utah, and New Mexico. Located within the Navajo Nation are Canyon de Chelly National Monument, Monument Valley, Rainbow Bridge National Monument, the Hopi Indian Reservation, and the Shiprock landmark. The seat of government is located at the census-designated place of Window Rock in Apache County, Arizona. There are many Navajo Indian Reservations in this region.

Members of the nation are often known as Navajo, also spelled Navaho. Navajo call themselves Diné, a term from the Navajo language that means people. The Navajo are closely related to the Apache, and the Navajo language along with other Apache languages make up the Southern Athabaskan language family.

Congress established a Hopi (Navajo, Oozéí, or Ayahkinii "underground-house-people") reservation within the Navajo Nation's reservation at an historic homeland where Hopi history predates that of Diné in the area.

A conflict over shared lands emerged in the 1980s, when the Department of the Interior attempted to relocate Diné living in the Navajo/Hopi Joint Use Area. The conflict was resolved, or at least forestalled, by the award of a seventy-five-year lease to Diné who refused to leave the former shared lands.

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History

Image:Navajo cornfield.jpg The Navajo or Diné and the Apache tribal groups of the American Southwest speak dialects of the language family referred to as Athapaskan. Linguistic similarities indicate the Navajo and Apache were once a single ethnic group, with substantial numbers not present in the American Southwest until the early 1500s.

Trade between the long-established Pueblo peoples and the Athapaskans become important to both groups by the mid 16th century. The Pueblos exchanged maize and woven cotton goods for bison meat, hides and material for stone tools. Coronado observed Plains people wintering near the Pueblos in established camps. The Spanish first mention the "Apachu de Nabajo" (Navajo) in the 1620s, referring to people in the Chama region east of the San Juan River. By the 1640s, the term was applied to Athapaskan peoples from the Chama on the east to the San Juan on the west.

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Government

The Diné have three times refused to establish a new government under the Indian Reorganization Act of 1934. Members twice rejected constitutional initiatives offered by the federal government in Washington, first in 1935 and again in 1953. A reservation-based initiative in 1963 failed after members found the process to be too cumbersome and a potential threat to their self-determination. A constitution was drafted and adopted by the governing council but never ratified by the members. The earlier efforts were rejected primarily because members did not find enough freedom in the proposed forms of government to develop their livestock industries, in 1935, and their mineral resources, in 1953.

The Navajo Nation is divided into five Agencies and 110 Chapters, analogous to counties. The Tribal Council presently consists of 88 delegates, elected every four years by registered Navajo voters. The Nation has a three branch system: Executive, Legislative, and Judicial.

The United States still asserts plenary power to require the Navajo Nation to submit all proposed laws to the United States Secretary of the Interior for Secretarial Review, through the Bureau of Indian Affairs. Most conflicts and controversies between the federal government and the Nation are settled by negotiation and by political agreements. Laws of the Navajo Nation are currently codified in the Navajo Tribal Code. The Bureau of Indian Affairs maintains five Indian Agency headquarters within the Navajo Indian Reservation. The Agency headquarters are similar to county administration offices.

Image:Dine College.gif

Image:Navajo sandpainting.jpg Local and federal law enforcement agencies that routinely work within the Navajo Nation include the Navajo Division of Public Safety, often called the Navajo Police, the Bureau of Indian Affairs, often called the BIA, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation

Image:Navajos sandpainting.jpg The Navajo governing council continues a historical practice of prohibiting alcohol sales within reservation boundaries. Navajo residents who drink alcohol often obtain supplies in nearby cities, such as Gallup and Grants, New Mexico. For some visitors of the area — often attracted by the Indian jewelry trade, by tourist attractions or by the Interstate Highway that passes through the area — heavy traffic to off-reservation liquor stores, and the public drunkenness that often follows have created impressions that drunkenness seems to describe Indian culture. Leaders and some member groups actively oppose the sale of alcohol, and have taken several measures to find and offer treatment for those members who are suffering from alcoholism.

Navajo Nation President Joe Shirley, Jr. addressed the Navajo Nation Council in the annual State of the Navajo Nation Address on January 24, 2005 and presented his conviction to develop a governing document for the Navajo Nation. President Shirley, who campaigned to return government to the Diné by government reform, stated that the document must establish the structure and authority of a central government.

The Navajo Nation, being organized under a code, is subject to the Bureau of Indian Affairs unlike other Indian nations that do not need BIA approval for most actions. Image:Navajo blanket.jpg

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Economy

Image:Navajo flocks.jpg The Navajo Nation has built a modern economy on traditional endeavors such as sheep and cattle herding, fiber production, weaving, jewelry making, and art trading. Newer industries that employ members include coal and uranium mining, though the uranium market slowed near the end of the 20th century. The Navajo Nation's extensive mineral resources are among the most valuable held by Native American nations within the United States. The Navajo government employs hundreds in civil service and administrative jobs. One important business within the reservation is the operation of roadside stands selling handmade crafts, especially on major highways or near major tourist attractions. Other Navajo members work at retail stores and other businesses within the Nation's reservation or in nearby towns. Image:Navajo weaver.jpg Image:Navajo children.jpg Until 2004, the Navajo Nation had declined to join other indigenous nations within the United States who have opened casinos. That year, the nation signed a compact with the state of New Mexico to operate a casino at To'hajiilee, near Albuquerque. Navajo leaders also negotiated with Arizona state officials in talks that could lead to casinos near Flagstaff, Lake Powell, Winslow, Sanders (Nahata Dziil Chapter), and Cameron (Grand Canyon entrance).

The Black Mesa and Lake Powell railroad served Peabody Energy's Black Mesa coal mine near Kayenta and hauled the coal to the Navajo Generating Station at Page, Arizona. The controversial strip mine was shut down on December 31 2005 for its emission credits.

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Culture and education

The name "Navajo" pascy and tl is the name given to them by the Tewa Pueblo Indians, whose settlement preceded the Navajo, and may mean "thieves" or "takers from the fields." (The names by which many Native American tribes are commonly known are derived from epithets used by their enemies.) The Navajo, who came to the Southwest millennia after the Tewa, call themselves Diné, which is often translated to mean "the people." (Most Native American groups call themselves by names that mean "the people" in their own languages.) Nonetheless, many Navajo now acquiesce to being called "Navajo."

The Navajo Nation runs Diné College, a two-year community college which has its main campus in Tsaile in Apache County, as well as seven other campuses on the reservation. Current enrollment is 1,830 students, of which 210 are degree-seeking transfer students for four-year institutions. The college includes the Center for Diné Studies, whose goal is to apply Navajo Sa'ah Naagháí Bik'eh Hózhóón principles to advance quality student learning through Nitsáhákees (thinking), Nahatá (planning), Iiná (living), and Sihasin (assurance) in study of the Diné language, history, and culture in preparation for further studies and employment in a multi-cultural and technological world.

Image:Navajo sandpainting2.jpg Navajos are known for their sandpainting, performed for healing ceremonies and as part of other spiritual activities. They are also renowned for their beautiful weaving and for making silver and turquoise jewelry.

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Housing and transportation

Most housing in the Navajo Nation today are detached single-family homes and mobile homes (in some localities of the reservation, mobile homes make up more than half of existing structures). Very few homes are more than $100,000 in value, and a large percentage of housing does not cost more than $25,000. Most homes in the Navajo Nation are built in the 1960s, 1970s, or 1980s, but some older housing does exist. Single-family homes are mostly rural-styled homes constructed of wood. Because many homes do not have access to natural gas and electricity, most homes use wood or propane for heat and often cooking.

However, because of the reservation's remote geographic location, many structures do not have telephone or public utiliy services and lack complete kitchen or plumbing facilities. These problems are especially dominant in remote villages with populations of less than 1,000 people. The reliability of water supply in some regions is threatened by such factors as drought and uranium pollution.

Roads within the reservation vary in condition. Most federally operated U.S. highways are in excellent condition year-round and are suitable for vehicles of any size. Roads are generally unpaved in many rural areas and small villages. In the central parts of the Navajo Nation, near the Black Mesa, roads are often only fairly or poorly maintained, and are sometimes in nearly unusable condition after very heavy rains. In general, except for the most remote regions, road conditions in the Navajo Nation are usually acceptable for routine use.

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Illness

Several types of cancer are in evidence at rates higher than the national average on the Four Corners Navajo Reservation. (Raloff, 2004) Especially high are the rates of reproductive-organ cancers in teenage Navajo girls, averaging seventeen times higher than the average of girls in the United States.

Image:Navajo woman & child.jpg It has been suspected that uranium mines, both active and abandoned, have released dust into the surrounding air and the water supply. Studies done on mice, exposing them to a soluble form of uranium similar to what might enter groundwater from the mines, showed heavy increases in estrogen levels which might explain the increased cancer levels among Navajo girls. The amount of uranium given to the mice was half the level permitted by the Environmental Protection Agency, and one-tenth the level found in some wells on the Navajo reservation.

Diabetes mellitus is a major health problem among the Navajo, Hopi and Pima tribes, about four times higher than the age-standardized U.S. estimate. Medical researchers believe increased consumption of carbohydrates, coupled with genetic factors, play significant roles in the emergence of this chronic disease.

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See also

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References

  • Bailey, L. R. (1964). The long walk: A history of the Navaho Wars, 1846-1868.
  • Bighorse, Tiana. (1990). Bighorse the Warrior. Ed. Noel Bennett, Tucson: University of Arizona Press.
  • Downs, James F. (1972). The Navajo. New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston.
  • Gilpin, Laura. (1968). The enduring Navaho. Austin: University of Texas Press.
  • Hillerman, Tony: author of a series of fictional detective novels set on and near the Navajo reservation.
  • Iverson, Peter. (2002). Diné: A history of the Navahos. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press. ISBN 0826327141
  • Kluckholm, Clyde; & Leighton, Dorothea. (1946). The Navaho. Cambridge: Oxford University Press.
  • McNitt, Frank. (1972). Navajo wars. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press.
  • Template:Cite journal[1]
  • Tapahonso, Luci. (1987) A Breeze Swept Through. Albuquerque: West End Press.
  • ------. (1993) Sáanii Dahataal: The Women are Singing. Tucson: University of Arizona Press.
  • ------. (1997) Blue Horses Rush In. Tucson: University of Arizona Press.
  • Terrell, J. U. (1970). The Navajos.
  • Underhill, Ruth M. (1956). The Navahos. Norman: The University of Oklahoma Press.
  • Witherspoon, Gary. (1977). Language and Art in the Navajo Universe. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.
  • Loewen, James. W. (1999 ). Lies Across America. Pages 100-101; The New Press.
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External links

dk:Navajo de:Navajo-Nation-Reservation nv:Diné bikéyah es:Navajo fr:Navajos hr:Navaho it:Navajo nl:Navajo ja:ディネ pl:Nawahowie pt:Navajo

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