Indian tribes NAVAJO
The Navajo or Navaho are a people committed in Northern Arizona Native American and part of the territories of Utah and New Mexico. Currently form the largest ethnic group among Native Americans.
The name comes from the Navajo Navahuu in Tewa language, spoken by some people of the southwest, means cultivated field in a small stream. In the Navajo language one uses the term Diné (sometimes referred to in literature as Dineh) which means The People.
From the ethnic point of view the Southern Athabaskan Navajo belong to the branch, originally from Alaska and northern Canada and in fact belong to the nations of the Apache in 1500, coming from the north, settled in a vast territory stretching from Arizona to western Texas and Colorado to northern Mexico and came into conflict with the Pueblo people who lived in those territories. Unlike other Amerindian populations Apaches did not have a single identity of a nation or tribe, but they were divided into clans or extended family groups, based on a matrilineal (the men went to live at the bride's family). Each group is considered a nation.
From the linguistic point of view the Navajo language belongs to the Athabaskan language family of Na-Dene, the same type of Athabaskan language of the north and the Apaches in the strict sense.
The Navajo descended from the cold regions of North America and settled shortly before contact with Europeans in the San Juan Basin, a tributary of the Colorado River in 1500 in part of the territory of today's Colorado, New Mexico and Arizona. From the people of invaders turned into a semi-nomadic nation living mostly of agriculture and secondarily breeding. Over time this activity distinguished them culturally from the rest of the Apache, as other Indian peoples and the Spaniards identified as the Navajo tribe of skilled farmers.
A characteristic shared with the rest of the people was the frequent use of the Apache raid against Europeans and Pueblo in order to increase the property in horses and sheep. Contrary to what is told in the epic Western, the Apache and Navajo did not have the cult of war and courage, and their associations lacked social structure similar to warrior society as populations in the Great Plains: the events of the war consisted in reality raids and guerrilla actions designed to escape reprisals. The individual value in the culture of the Navajo and Apache is measured not in the act of courage but rather in the effectiveness and extent of the looting of the property (horses and cattle). The war thus took on the characteristics of a guerrilla tactic in which they avoided confrontation for its own sake, but only dictated by the need to achieve an economic goal.
The social structure of the Navajo and Apache nations, pulverized in extended family groups without levels of organization of the highest degree, the refusal of open warfare, the use of the raid as an economic activity made these populations difficult opponents for the U.S. and in fact were among the last Indian nations to surrender completely. In the vicinity of the American Civil War, the U.S. government to secure the support of Arizona and New Mexico decided to end the problem of looting and confine most warlike peoples, especially the Navaho and Mescaleros at Bosque Redondo a reservation in New Mexico. The deal with the Navajo, which was commissioned Colonel Christopher Carson, should have taken place peacefully through negotiations, however, the difficulty of dealing with social organization pulverized and dispersed in a vast territory led to the outbreak of a campaign war that lasted almost a year (1863-1864). The result was a tragedy: the more than 1000 killed during the war added to the deportation of about 8000 feet Navajo to Bosque Redondo with a forced march of 300 miles, during which claimed the lives of the weakest. The confinement to Bosque Redondo, lasted 5 years, is seen as the blackest page in the history of the Navajo. The reserve was located in an unhealthy area, almost devoid of vegetation and little suited to agriculture. The supplies of food from the army were scarce and of poor quality and had frequent clashes with the Mescaleros, with whom he shared his confinement.
In 1868 he was a treaty between the Navajo and the U.S. government that ended confinement at Bosque Redondo and defined the boundaries of a new reserve straddles between the U.S. states of Arizona, New Mexico and Utah, which formed the basis of Navajo reservation final, also called the Navajo Nation. The return to the territories of origin marked a drastic change in the history of the Navajo. The population returned to farming and intensified farming, crafts (especially weaving and silversmithing) and ended with raids. Several Navajo supplemented the income, when it was not enough, with wage labor. The new course was so favorable that the wealth of the Navajo grew to levels that would drive the U.S. government to regulate the increase in organic livestock because of too many.
The people of the Navajo now has about 250,000 people and is the largest ethnic group among native
Americans stationed in an area of northeastern Arizona. The territory of the Navajo, who rebound well over 10 of the 50 U.S. states, enjoys administrative autonomy and the nation is one of the few examples of preservation of a strong American Indian identity in American society. While keeping alive its values (language, culture, tradition), the Navajo have adapted to the progress in the last century by organizing themselves into a modern and integrated social structure as an autonomous nation within a nation.
One of the elements of pride as American citizens of the Navajo language was the use of Navajo as a code of communication during the Second World War and the vital contribution made to the results of the battles of the American army against the Japanese by the Navajo code talker ( literally "those who speak the Code"). The Navajo language, a language complicated and at that time virtually unknown in the world outside the United States, was never decoded by Japanese counter.
The imaginary metaphysics is not facing up, as with Western cultures, but on the downside. Towards the native forces of the earth's depths. Of particular importance are the mountains themselves.
The art of the Navajo, who had the influence of Hispanic culture, focuses on three different areas:
• The carpet weaving;
• The melting point of processing and jewelry made of silver and turquoise stone;
• Painting with the sand.