Misunderstood, maligned, abused, despised, the Navaho has never stood high in the estimation of those whites who did not know him. Yet he is industrious, moral, honest, trustworthy, fairly truthful, religious, and good to his wife and children. Not a weak list of virtues, even though one has to detract from it by accusing him of ingratitude. There are noble exceptions, of course, to this charge, but from what I know and have seen, I am inclined to believe that many, if not most, Navahoes have no sense of moral responsibility for favors and benefits received.

Though, perhaps, not as interesting to study as the Hopis, there is still a wonderful field open for the student who is willing to go and live with the Navaho, learn his language, gain his confidence, participate in all his ceremonies, and enter into his social and domestic life.

No one has done this as much as Dr. Washington Matthews, whose "Navaho Legends" is a revelation to those people who have hitherto held the general ideas (propagated, too, by a scientific observer) so prevalent about this long-suffering people.

That the Navaho was reserved with the white man in the early days of American occupancy there can be no doubt, and the difficulty experienced in penetrating that reserve is well exemplified by reference to the letter of Dr. Joseph Letherman, who lived for three years among the tribe at Fort Defiance. Aided by Major Kendrick, who had long commanded at this post, he wrote a letter which appears in the Smithsonian Report for 1855. In this he says, among many good things: "Nothing can be learned of the origin of these people from themselves. At one time they say they came out of the ground; and at another, that they know nothing whatever of their origin; the latter, no doubt, being the truth." Again: "Of their religion little or nothing is known, as, indeed, all inquiries tend to show that they have none; and even have not, we are informed, any word to express the idea of a Supreme Being. We have not been able to learn that any observances of a religious character exist among them; and the general impression of those who have the means of knowing them is, that, in this respect, they are steeped in the deepest degradation." Once more: "They have frequent gatherings for dancing." And a little further on: "Their singing is but a succession of grunts, and is anything but agreeable."

One has but to read what Dr. Matthews has written and gathered from the Navahoes to see how misleading and erroneous the conclusions of Dr. Letherman were. To quote: "He [Dr. Matthews] had not been many weeks in New Mexico when he discovered that the dances to which the doctor refers were religious ceremonials, and later he found that these ceremonials might vie in allegory, symbolism, and intricacy of ritual with the ceremonies of any people, ancient or modern. He found, ere long, that these heathens, pronounced godless and legendless, possessed lengthy myths and traditions—so numerous that one can never hope to collect them all, a pantheon as well stocked with gods and heroes as that of the ancient Greeks, and prayers which, for length and vain repetition, might put a Pharisee to blush."

Wonderful songs also were found, full of poetic imagery, and suitable for every conceivable occasion, songs that have been handed down for generations. Of the sacred songs Dr. Matthews makes the astounding statement that, "sometimes, pertaining to a single rite, there are two hundred songs or more which may not be sung at other rites." Further: "The songs must be known to the priest of the rite and his assistants in a most exact manner, for an error made in singing a song may be fatal to the efficacy of a ceremony. In no case is an important mistake tolerated, and in some cases the error of a single syllable works an irreparable injury."

Popular conceptions of the Navaho are very crude and inaccurate. They are largely the result of two "floods of information" which deluged the country at two epochs in their history, and neither of them had much truth in the flood. The first of these epochs was at the discovery of the important cliff dwellings located on their reservation,—those of the Tsegi Canyon (the so-called Canyon de Chelly), Monument Canyon, Chaco Canyon, etc. Writers who visited the region wrote the most wild and outrageously conceived nonsense about this people and the dwellings they were supposed to look upon with superstitious veneration. Then later, a lot of unscrupulous whites, fired with similar zeal to that which led the old conquistadors across the deserts of northern Mexico and through the inhospitable wilds of Arizona and New Mexico,—the zeal for gold or silver,—which was doubtless fed by the fact that the Navahoes did possess thousands of dollars' worth of silver ornaments, started out to prospect the interior recesses of the Navaho reservation. Knowing by painful experience what this meant,—for their "white brothers" had stolen their springs and arable land from them on the Moenkopi, on the Little Colorado, at Willow Spring, and a score of other places,—the warlike and courageous Navahoes resented the presence of these men. They begged them to retire, and when the white men refused, fought and whipped them. This naturally excited the cupidity of the silver hunters more than ever. "Why should the blanked Indians fight if not to protect their silver mines?"—this was the kind of question asked, and the natural and legitimate resentment of the Navahoes was described all over the country as "another Indian uprising," and led to the second "flood of knowledge," which the newspapers always have forthcoming when public interest and curiosity are aroused.

Hence the truth often comes as a wet blanket to the preconceived notions of those who have drank deep from these earlier streams of information!

Science and legend both agree in giving to the Navaho a mixed origin. His is not a pure-blooded race. Their myths or legends refer to many assimilations of other people, strangers from the North, South, East, West, and everywhere, all of whom were welcomed and made an integral part of the nation. Hence there is no such thing as a distinctly Navaho type, or, as Hrdlicka puts it, "they show considerable difference in color and measurement, and cannot be considered a radically homogeneous people, but their mixture is not recent." This latter statement is doubtless true, as they would probably become more clannish as their nation grew in numbers and power.

Dr. Matthews gives the stories of the origin of several of the gentes. One story which he does not relate was told to me at Tohatchi, and serves to illustrate how a migration from the Northwest is transformed into a supernatural occurrence. Though told to me of the Navahoes as a whole, there can be no doubt that it applies only to a single gens. The story was in regard to Winged Rock, commonly called by the whites "Ship Rock," and about which I had been seeking information.

This rock is situated in the Navaho reservation, about one hundred miles northwest of Tohatchi, and some fifteen or twenty miles from Carrizo Mountain. It is difficult of access, and my informant assured me that even though an army of white men should reach its base they could never scale its steep sides and reach its top. All the Navaho tribe reverence it sincerely and all watch and guard it jealously. He would indeed be a brave white man who would dare the anger of these warlike and brave natives if they forbade his approach and would attempt to scale this sacred Winged Rock.

This was the legend: "Many, many years ago, when this country was young and the sun cast only small shadows, my people came across the narrow sea far away near the setting sun in the north and landed on the shores of this country. The people where they landed were exceedingly angry at them, and whenever they could they fell upon them and slew them. My people did not want to go to war, but this inhospitable reception made them angry, so they put themselves in war array and fell upon their foes. But there were few only of my people, and their enemies were so many that it was not long before they were in sad straits. Indeed, they would soon have been entirely destroyed had not help come. In their distress they called on Those Above, and soon a messenger from the sky came to my people and said: 'See you yonder stone mountain? Flee to it. It will be your salvation. Climb up its steep, strong, rugged sides and it will carry you toward the land of the South sea, nearer to the rising sun, and there your home shall be.'

"My people were only too glad to obey the message. They hastened towards the mountain. Some who were weak were enabled to fly towards it like birds, and they clung to its steep sides and clambered to its top.

"Then when they were all safe on its huge bulk, the monster rock was taken by Those Above, and it arose and floated across the rivers and plains and mountains and lakes and canyons. Several days and nights it floated, and my people gazed with wonder upon the strange and wonderful countries through which they travelled. Sometimes they thought they would like to stay in this place or in that, but the wisdom of Those Above said No! and the rock floated on. Oh! it was a glorious sail. Never before or since has any people been so blessed and favored by the People of the Shadows Above.

"Finally the Winged Rock crossed the great deep canyon of the Colorado River, and my people were afraid of its vast depths. Then the rock gently settled down to the earth, where it is now found, and our home was reached. It did not seem to be a very beautiful land, but it was given to us by Those Above, and my people soon became content. We were shown the springs and the watercourses, and we found the mountains covered with trees, and the rivers and creeks. So that when any one speaks of our leaving our country we are afraid and we cry: 'No, why should we leave this land given to us, and which we love? Yonder is the rock on which we came, and never until that rock floats away with us shall we leave the land that we love so well!'

"As soon as we were settled here, Those Above gave us some great shamans, and one of them told us that we must always do right, for the sun, when it rises, would watch our every action all throughout the day, and when he went away at night it was to tell Those Above all our evil actions, for which we should be punished."

While the Apaches and Navahoes are of the same stock, there have always been marked differences between them so long as they have been under the observation of the white men. When the Spaniards entered the country, the Navahoes were more distinctly an agricultural people than the Apaches. They had large patches of land under cultivation, kept their crops and lived in houses underground. Cultivated lands necessitated settled residences, and after the Spaniards introduced sheep, it was not long before the Navahoes were extensive sheep raisers. It would not be any wiser or more profitable to enter into an inquiry as to the methods by which these flocks were acquired than it would be to ascertain the history of many of the landed possessions of European nobilities. With the Navaho, possession was the only law he cared anything for. "To have and to hold" was his motto; and once "having," he held pretty securely. Hence the sheep possessions of the neighboring pueblo Indians were held by exceedingly precarious tenure.

And here we have, I believe, one of the additional sources of enmity between the Navaho and the Spaniard. As their wards, the Spanish were in duty bound to care for and protect the Pueblos. Thus Navaho and Spaniard were ever at war, and when the Mexican came in the Spaniard's stead the battle still continued on the same lines and with the same ferocity.

It was on the 22d of January in 1849 that Lieut. J. H. Simpson, afterwards General, started on that interesting trip of his through the Navaho country, which has forever connected his name with these nomads. He was not in command of the expedition, its head being Col. John M. Washington, who was military and civil governor of New Mexico at the time. The object of the expedition was to coerce the Navahoes into a compliance with a treaty which they had made with the United States, two years previously, and to extend the provisions of the treaty.

When they reached the Chaco Canyon trouble ripened between the soldiers and the Navahoes, and the latter were fired upon, with the result that seven were killed, including Narbona, their great warrior and chief.

This was but one of many such attacks upon the whites. Then as now, only far more so, the Navahoes resented the intrusion of white people in their territory; and having gained fire-arms, they used them to deadly purpose upon those who slighted their will.

There is no doubt that the Navahoes were a source of great terror to the Mexicans who first settled in and near their territory. Even after the United States became their guardians at the acquisition of New Mexico in 1847, they were very hostile, murders, robberies, and depredations of every kind being quite common. In 1855, Dr. Letherman reported that "the nation, as a nation, is fully imbued with the idea that it is all powerful, which, no doubt, has arisen from the fact of its having been for years a terror and a dread to the inhabitants of New Mexico." But that these depredations were not perpetrated upon the whites alone is evident from the fact that one of the richest men of the Navahoes himself applied to Major Kendrick, then the commanding officer of Fort Defiance, N. Mex., to protect his cattle, as he could not otherwise prevent his own people from stealing them.

The insolence from years of this kind of free life needed forceful check, but it was not until 1862 that the unbearable conduct of the Navahoes brought upon themselves this long-needed chastisement.

According to governmental reports, the Indians of New Mexico (among whom were the Navahoes and Mescalero Apaches) caused losses between 1860 and 1863 to the people of that territory of "not less than 500,000 sheep, and 5,000 horses, mules, and cattle. Over 200 lives have been also sacrificed of citizens, soldiers, and shepherds." It was also stated in 1863 "that the military establishment of this territory [New Mexico, which then included Arizona], since its acquisition, has cost not less than $3,000,000 annually, independent of land-warrant bounties." And while this was for a conquered country, the whole expenditure was for the chastisement of hostile Indians, every tribe of which in turn came in for its share of the fighting.

It was openly advocated about this time that the policy of extermination was the only one that could be followed, and this must be brought about either by actual warfare, or by driving the hostiles into the mountains and there starving them to death.

Brig.-Gen. J. H. Carleton, who was in control of the department of New Mexico, determined upon a thorough and complete change in our treatment of this haughty and proud people. They had made six treaties at different times with officers of our Government and had violated them before they could be ratified at Washington. He strongly counselled drastic measures in a letter which is historically of sufficient interest to justify a large quotation from it:—

"At the Bosque Redondo there is arable land enough for all the Indians of this family [the Navahoes and Apaches have descended from the same stock and speak the same language], and I would respectfully recommend that now the war be vigorously prosecuted against the Navahoes; that the only peace that can ever be made with them must rest on the basis that they move on to these lands, and, like the Pueblos, become an agricultural people, and cease to be nomads. This should be a sine qua non; as soon as the snows of winter admonish them of the sufferings to which their families will be exposed, I have great hopes of getting most of the tribe. The knowledge of the perfidy of these Navahoes, gained after two centuries of experience, is such as to lead us to put no faith in their promises. They have no government to make treaties; they are a patriarchal people. One set of families may make promises, but the other set will not heed them. They understand the direct application of force as a law; if its application be removed, that moment they become lawless. This has been tried over and over again, and at great expense. The purpose now is, never to relax the application of force with a people that can no more be trusted than the wolves that run through the mountains. To collect them together, little by little, on to a reservation, away from the haunts and hills and hiding-places of their country; there be kind to them; there teach their children how to read and write; teach them the arts of peace, teach them the truths of Christianity. Soon they will acquire new habits, new ideas, and new modes of life; and the old Indians will die off, and carry with them all latent longings for murdering and robbing. The young ones will take their places without these longings, and thus, little by little, they will become a happy and contented people; and Navaho wars will be remembered only as something that belong entirely to the past. Even until they can raise enough to be self-sustaining, you can feed them cheaper than fight them....

"I know these ideas are practical and humane—are just to the suffering people, as well as to the aggressive, perfidious, butchering Navahoes. If I can have one more full regiment of cavalry, and authority to raise one independent company in each county of the Territory, they can soon be carried to a final result."

In 1863 General Carleton's suggestions in the main were approved by the Indian Department and he proceeded to carry out his plan.

Col. Kit Carson, the noted scout, with an adequate force was sent out to humble and punish the Navahoes. It was wise that such a just, humane, and wise Indian fighter was sent to do this work. His knowledge of their characters stood him in good purpose, and in a very short time over seven thousand prisoners were taken. Later this number was increased, until they amounted to about ten or eleven thousand.

At the same time the Apaches were being cornered, and a number of them were removed to Fort Stanton, on the Peeos River, far enough down into the open country to prevent easy escape to the mountains. Part of this settlement was the Bosque Redondo, and General Carleton's plan contemplated the settlement of both Apaches and Navahoes here.

Hopi Ceremonial Head-dresses.

In the collection of George Wharton James.

Hopi Bahos and Dance Rattles.

In the collection of George Wharton James.

Compelled by a superior force, the now humbled Navahoes were herded together like sheep and in 1863 were removed to the chosen place. It was soon found, however, that this was an inhospitable region, altogether unfitted to be the home of so large a population. The water was alkaline, and the soil not of a nature suitable to the raising of corn. There was practically no fuel, and the Navahoes had to dig up mesquite roots and carry them on their backs twelve miles for this purpose. In two or three years more than one-fourth of their number died and the remainder grew more and more dissatisfied with the location.

In 1867, however, Manuelito and Barboncita, two of the war chiefs, came into the reservation, both of them having surrendered to the commandant at Fort Wingate. The former had refused to come into the reservation in 1863, and the latter ran away from it, with his band of warriors, in 1864. These two bands added 780 more of men, women, and children to the population, which, in June, 1867, was reported to be 7,300.

This whole Bosque Redondo was a disgraceful business, on a line with so much of the wretched and abominable treatment the Indians have received at our hands. Think of placing ten thousand Indians upon a reservation where there was no water but black, brackish stuff not fit for cattle, no fuel, and no soil for cultivation of the chief article of their diet. Deprived of food, water, and fuel, what would white men be? No wonder the Navahoes rebelled and were kept in order only by brute force.

At length those in authority saw the iniquity of the proceeding and the order was given to return them to their reservation. This was done, but with a loss by death, mainly through preventable causes, of over three thousand souls.

Since this time they have been industrious and progressive. The Bosque lesson, though severe, was needed, and it proved salutary. One can travel with perfect safety unarmed across the Navaho reservation, as I have done several times; and a lady friend, unarmed, and unaccompanied by any other escort than a Navaho, has travelled hundreds of miles in perfect safety among the Navahoes in all parts of their reservation.[3]

In September, 1870, a number of dissatisfied Utes visited the Navahoes at the so-called "Navaho Church," which can be seen on the right on the line of the Santa FÉ Railway, going to California. All the principal chiefs of the tribe were present and the causes of dissatisfaction against the whites were fully discussed. The powwow was an important one, and lasted several days, but the chief purpose of the Utes—to incite the Navahoes to warfare against the whites—was not successful. The crafty Utes, with stirring eloquence, said they had heard the white men saying they were going to take possession of the whole country, and that when they did they would kill off all the chief men of the Navahoes. "See how they have stolen in upon your territory and taken the springs and land that you have had all the time up till now! They have taken the water and land at Wingate and at Defiance, and soon they will take all you have, and you and your children will perish because you have no water, no grass for your horses and sheep, and no corn for food. Join in with us and drive these hated people away. Get all the guns and ammunition you can, and prepare many new bows and arrows. Let us sing the war songs together, and go on the war-path and hunt down and kill the whites as the Pueblos hunt down and kill rabbits. Then we will be friends. You will have your country to yourselves, and Those Above will make of you a great nation. We shall have our country and we shall become great. Now we are dwindling down; we are melting away as the snows on the hillside. United against the whites we shall both become stronger, and grow like the well-watered corn."

The Navahoes refused to give answer until they had consulted among themselves, and then one of their chiefs reported their decision as follows: "We have heard what our Ute brothers have said. If our white brothers want to kill us they can do so. They have had plenty of chances and we are yet alive. All of our people who have been slain have been those who have gone on the war-path against them in the past. We do not wish to die, so we will not go on the war-path. We will stay at home. We have food. The whites treat us well. If our Ute brothers must fight we will not interfere, but we ourselves do not wish to fight."

The result was that the Ute bands returned to their homes without any specific act of warfare at that time.