The Navajo tribe is the largest Native American group in Arizona. They first descended from the Apaches, who came from the Pueblos, also known as the Anasazi. The Navajo are known for weaving blankets, raising sheep, and generally being a peaceful tribe. Typically, the Navajo tribe was deeply religious, worshiping their common possessions, such as livestock and homes. The Navajo women were primary leaders in society. The typical Navajo's life was a wealth of culture. The Hogan is the traditional dwelling of the Navajo tribe. It was built of poles, bark, and mud, being approximately twenty-three feet in diameter. The doorway opened to the East, so as to welcome the sun, thus providing light. The Hogan was primarily used to prepare meals, sleep, and for shelter from rain. They were also used for healing ceremonies and burying the dead, if one died in a home. These homes were recognized as a symbol of goodness, resulting in being the main topic of spiritual tales. Today, one can observe ancient Hogans in museums of the Navajo. The traditional Hogan was generally a symbol of family life. Sheep were especially important in the culture of the Navajo tribe as they make out on a regular basis. These animals provided wool and food. The Navajo mainly raised Churro sheep, which had to be shorn twice a year. Sheep were also connected with religion, as they were the Navajos holiest possession. The sheep of the Navajo tribe provided a variety of essential needs. The Navajo tribe was particularly famous for weaving blankets. They raised their own materials for weaving such as cotton and sheep, as well as plants for dyeing, like onion and walnuts. As white settlers were traveling through Arizona, they often enjoyed purchasing these blankets. Intricate designs began being woven into the blankets in 1900. By the mid-twentieth century, the Navajo had become world famous for their weaving. The Navajo?s woven blankets were a vital financial resource to their tribe. Women held a significant role in Navajo society. Females were the primary leaders and owned property. When Navajo men married, they would dwell in the homes of his bride?s family. As women held an influential role in Navajo society, the coming of age at thirteen years old for females was celebrated with great parties, honoring the girl.
Weisiger begins by discussing the debate about the Stock Reduction Program from 1933-1934. She goes on then to detail the importance of livestock to Navajo cultural identity and way of life. Weisiger writes, “Dine knew nature not only through their connections with the physical environment but also To begin, it ties into a popular belief of Michael Pollans, that we “Should eat more like our Great-Grandmothers”. This belief ties into Dreaming of Sheep in Navajo Country because both books have an understanding that we should eat from scratch and have some sort of self-sufficiency when preparing our meals. Another study that this books falls into is the importance of agricultural knowledge.
The Pueblo culture contended many fragments to their culture that varied from the Spaniards Culture. The Native Americans were nature reliant they received all their necessities from the earth. They not only used the land but also thanked the earth. They included over three hundred spirit or gods that the pueblos prayed to for various different reasons, they called them Kachinas. Some of the spirits were Sun god, the rain god, star gods, the wind god and many other divinities. The Natives adore the Kachinas with praise for good crops, good health, family, homes, protection and various other things every day. Customs for the pueblos included rituals to heal problems such as disease in people who are sick, women who are not infertile and many other issues in the tribe. They contained Kivas; kivas were an underground compartment custom for secretive ceremonial practices. The purposes for Kivas were for the Pueblos to get closer to the spirit world. They thought that everything living came from the inferior part of the land. Pu...
The story Navajo Lessons conveys the theme that “It is important to learn and appreciate your heritage.” This story is about a girl, Celine, and her brother that visit her grandmother on the Navajo reservation in Arizona. Celine arrives at a place in the middle of nowhere at her grandmother’s house and is not excited because she had better plans for the summer. Her family is encouraging her to deal with it and make something good out of it. Over time, Celine learns that this trip was worth it because she realized that it is important to learn and appreciate your heritage. Celine learned this in many ways, one of them being that she wanted to learn and listen to the stories that her grandmother was telling.
Wheelwright, M. (1942). Navajo Creation Myth. Navajo Religion Series, Vol. 1. Santa Fe: Museum of Navajo Ceremonial Art.
The Cahuilla were a Native Southern Californian tribe that occupied the Riverside County, Higher Palomar Mountain Region and East Colorado Desert. The tribe was divided into two groups or moieties know as Wildcats or Coyotes. The Cahuilla lived in small clans that varied in population, and together all the separate clans made up a larger political group called a sib ”http://www.aguacaliente.org/content/History%20&%20Culture/.” The tribe was at first considered to be very simple and savage because they were never interacted with. As the Europeans and Spanish Missionaries considered the desert an inhospitable place that was better to avoid because of its lack of food resources. Little did those European and Spanish missionaries know that the land was ripe with food, only if you knew the land and the seasons. The Cahuilla were a very interesting tribe that cared and loved their land and in return the land would provide them with an abundance of food and resources. The Cahuilla had a very simple yet intricate life that involved a seasonal migration in order to gain access to different foods. They relied on different ways of acquiring food which involved both hunting and gathering.
The Navajo also made blankets which have simple geometric patterns. Notice how in Figure 4 the artist combined a solid center with rectangles and diamonds on the edge to represent the Navajo’s cultural emphasis on restrained aggressiveness and controlled movement (Parr, 2002). It is important for the Navajo to maintain a balance between static and active, and so they represented this the symmetric designs of their blankets as seen in Figure 5 (Parr, 2002).
The Hopi have a highly developed belief system which contains many gods and spirits. Ceremonies, rituals, dances, songs, and prayers are celebrated in year-round. The Hopi believed they were led to the arid southwestern region of America by their creator, because he knew they had the power to evoke rain with power and prayer. Consequently, the Hopi are connected to their land, its agricultural cycles and the constant quest for rainfall, in a religious way. The religious center of the community is the kiva, which is an underground room with a ladder protruding above the roof. The kiva is very important for several reasons. From the kiva, a connection is made with the center of the earth. Also, the kiva is symbolic for the emergence to this world. The room would represent the underworld and the ladder would represent the way to the upper world. In fact, a room is kept in the house to store ceremonial objects. A sacred ear of corn protects the room and symbolizes the ancestry of the family members. Kachinas are also a focal point of the religion. For a Hopi, they signify spirits of ancestors, dieties of the natural world, or intermediaries between man and gods. The Hopi believe that they are the earth's caretakers, and with the successful performance of their ceremonial cycle, the world will remain in balance, the gods will be happy and rain will come. Because they think of their crops as gifts, the Hopi Indians live in harmony with the environment.
First of all, the Navajo lifestyle is very similar to the concepts of Bless Me, Ultima. In the Navajos' daily life ceremonies and rituals are practiced. These ceremonies are performed to treat and heal physical and/or mental illnesses. There are more than 50 different kinds of ceremonies that the Navajo may use. Like how Ultima sings a song while she cures Uncle Lucas, the Navajo chant during their performances. Navajo performers also dance and sand-paint for the rituals. As Ultima and Tony heal Uncle Lucas, the two take many days to cure him. The Navajo also hold their ceremonies that may last from one to nine days, depending on how long it takes for the sick person to be revived. Color is also very symbolic, as there was different, separate meanings fo...
The Cheyenne Indians had quite an interesting life and many different customs that even live on today. The daily life of a Cheyenne always began before the sun rose. Women and men each had their own separate duties for the day. The women would prepare the meals while the men and boys would herd up the horses back to their camp. Each day, also, there were daily activities announced to everyone in the tribe. These activities included the children to go out and play for most of the day, the women would clean and have their time to converse with the other women, and the men would go out and play w...
The marriage practices for the Navajo Indians are very unique. The bride must be bought with horses, sheep, or other valuable items. What many Navajo Indians used to use in the 40’s were love potions. These love potions include many plants and herbs in them, and were used to make someone fall in love with someone else. In many traditions for Navajo weddings they used a lot of plants and herbs. After the wedding ceremony they would have a big feast. The main food at the feast was always corn.
A valuable and vital resource to the people was water. The Cliff House Sandstone found in Mesa Verde served not only as a home for the Ancestral Puebloans, but also
The Shawnees were a patrilineal tribe meaning they are traced through the males of the family. Although men were a main part of the culture, each village had an informal group of women who governed certain tribal rituals and set dates for many activities. Women were also allowed to save captives and prisoners. This practice was foreign to the time period because women do not usually have a voice. Children are inferior and are required to learn the ways to be able to be an active part in the tribe when they become adults. After many years the Shawnees were more dependent on the outside, yet they still followed a lifestyle based on hunting and gathering.
Kathryn book Life in the Pueblo is based on excavations that she did at Lizard Man Village (Kamp, 1997). This was a small pueblo located in Arizona which is believed to be inhabited between 11th and 13th century. These ancient excavations were first carried out by United States Forest Service and were parts of Grinnell College field school (Kamp, 1997). The aim of the book was to describe Lizard Man Village and present excavation processes and analysis. Kamp 1997 offers archaeological interpretation of the site in relation to the past understandings. She bring out successfully three narratives. These narratives include ethnographic data in relationship to traditional accounts from Hopi (a place which is believed to be the first resident of Lizard Man) (Kamp, 1997). He also bring out clearly the issue of archaeology as well as fictional account basing it on both ethnography and archaeology.
Many people today know the story of the Indians that were native to this land, before “white men” came to live on this continent. Few people may know that white men pushed them to the west while many immigrants took over the east and moved westward. White men made “reservations” that were basically land that Indians were promised they could live on and run. What many Americans don’t know is what the Indians struggled though and continue to struggle through on the reservations.
In ceremonial practices, scared objects were often placed into baskets. The ceremonial baskets were made especially for different ceremonies and were never used for every day purposes. Sacred objects were sometimes single fetishes and sometimes collections of objects brought together though the years and kept in a ceremonial basket (Underhill 24). The proper way to keep fetishes was in an oblong basket of twilled yucca (Underhill 24). This oblong basket was called a waca, not to be confused with the ordinary coiled basket, which was called a hoa. It was very important to the tribe not to keep scared objects in regular baskets. People who owned a fetish kept their basket packed with eagle down, deertails and periodically “fed” the scared object with cane cigarettes and even food (Underhill 24-25). They could not move the baskets with out a ritual, which was part of the ceremony for food or purification. If anyone who was not authorized to move the basket touched it, the tribe believed a flood would come. The ceremonial baskets are very important to the Tohono O’odham tribe for a lot of their religious ceremonies.