The Navajo make up the second most populous nation of Native American people in the United States. Approximately 300,000 Navajo individuals were living in the early 21st century across New Mexico, Arizona, and Utah.
The Navajo speak an Apachean language from the Athabaskan language family. At some point in history, the Navajo and Apache migrated to the Southwest from Canada, where most other Athabaskan-speaking people still live. Scholars believe they left the North between 1100 and 1500 AD. The Navajo were originally mobile hunters and gatherers but after moving to the Southwest, they adopted many of the practices of the Pueblo people who relied on farming and ranching. During the 18th century, some Hopi tribal members left their mesas because of drought and famine and joined the Navajo, particularly in Canyon de Chelly in northeast Arizona.
Influenced by other nations, Navajo people adopted both Pueblo and Hopi artistic styles such as painted pottery and weaving, and became famous for weaving Navajo rugs. Navajo ceremonialist also adopted art forms such as dry-sand painting which originated with Pueblos. Navajo people became known for their silver jewelry, probably taught to them by Mexican smiths, and turquiose gems.
Navajo religious traditions include stories about the first people on earth, the various worlds beneath the surface of the earth, and other stories about the origins and purposes or religious rites and ceremonies. Some of these practices are simple traditions performed by individuals or families seeking luck in travel and trade or protection of crops and herds. More-complex rites involve specialists who are paid according to the complexity and length of the ceremony. Traditionally, most rites primarily cured physical and mental illnesses. In some ceremonies the Navajo prayed or sang songs, and in others they created paintings. They held public dances and exhibitions where thousands of Navajo gathered. Much of these traditions still remain strong in Navajo culture.
Although the Navajo never raided white settlers as extensively as the Apache, their raiding was serious enough to cause the US government in 1863 to order Col. Kit Carson to subdue them. The ensuing campaign resulted in the destruction of large amounts of crops and herds and the incarceration of about 8,000 Navajo, along with 400 Mescalero Apache, at Bosque Redondo, 180 miles south of Santa Fe, New Mexico. This four-year (1864–68) captivity left a legacy of bitterness and distrust that has still not entirely disappeared.
Socially and politically, the Navajo now resemble other Apachean people in their general preference for limiting centralized tribal and political organizations, although they have adopted pan-tribal governmental and legal systems in order to maintain tribal sovereignty. Traditional Navajo society is still organized through matrilineal kinship: small, independent bands of related kin generally made decisions on a consensus basis. These groups tend to be based on locality of residence as well as kinship, and many of these local groups have elected leaders. A local group is not a village or town but rather a collection of dwellings from a wide area.Some things we talked about in this class: https://dallascollege.brightspace.com/content/enfo…
The Iroquois tribe officially emerged in the early 18th century as the Cayuga, Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, and Seneca Nations joined with remnants of the Tuscarora Confederacy. Five original nations became six nations settling near areas northeast of Lake Ontario, along the St. Lawrence River, and land encompassing today’s New York State. As these communities combined to form a new nation and lifestyle, their stories likewise merged to form an extensive oral history. Perhaps reflecting the political forces of the time, the people of the longhouse, as they were often called, enjoyed myths centered on the creation of earth which contributed to the rich literary canon of American literature.
Many neighboring tribes knew the Iroquois as the people of the longhouse or Haudenosaunee because their homes consisted of two rows of poles driven into the ground in zigzag lines ten or twelve feet apart thus forming a long dome shaped establishment. On opposite sides of a center path, each family occupied a six by nine foot personal area. Janine Carpenter, an expert on the history of the Iroquois civilization, described the dwellings saying, “Leather curtains separated family spaces from the rest on the longhouse in order to provide privacy; however, the sense of community was not escapable; they could not help but intermingle” (35). Carpenter suggests that despite the fact that families were divided in the longhouse, the dwelling itself facilitated a sense of community and offered many opportunities to share stories.
Click the following link to view a video of the Iroquois legend:
Iroquois Beginnings
Despite the fact that families were assigned individual spaces, the sense of community flourished among the people of the longhouse. The introduction to The Iroquois Creation Story found in the Norton Anthology of American Literature suggests that Iroquois creation myths existed in twenty five versions (17). Although scholars debate over the origins of each of these tales, the confederacy of the six nations obviously contributed to the vastness of these stories, each tribe telling their own version (Iroquois 1295).
Many political implications may have also embellished the content of the stories. David Cusick, a Christian yet native born Oneida and 18th century Native American language scholar, argued that the Iroquois creation story “cannot help but strike us as a Myth.” He claims that Native American stories containing supernatural events and beaten monsters may have inspired the nation battered by British settlers. The British expelled the Tuscarora from North Carolina and used the Six Nations as a buffer against the advance of the French from Canada in the French and Indian Wars (www.Iroquois.net). Cusick argues that stories helped solidify the confederacy as a path to strengthen the individual nations and ensure survival during European colonization. Without a confederacy, the individual tribes may have been too weak to protect themselves.
In a time of losing hope and immanent usurpation vis-à-vis the European colonization, the Iroquois possibly found comfort in their creation stories. These tales represent not only a fantastical literary tradition, but perhaps inspiration that helped bind the nations as one. This is just some things we learned, not everything.