Community Organization of the Western Navajo

Abstract

THE PURPOSE of this paper is to arrive at some definition of the concept which fits the social reality of the present day Western Navajos. Despite the fact that studies of Navajo are numerous, no detailed survey of current notions has been undertaken to date. Because the research presented here has been conducted as part of an applied project in Health Education, the goal has not been one of purely theoretical interest. The need of the applied anthropologist and medical worker for a working definition of community'on the Navajo Reservation forces one beyond a theoretical analysis of the extant literature dealing with the subject. The area dealt with in this study, and called the Western Navajo throughout, is bounded by the Colorado and Little Colorado Rivers on the north, west, and south, and by the longitude 111? 30' on the east (Fig. 1). It is about 170 miles from north to south at its longest point and some 70 miles from east to west. The terrain varies from desert to steppe and includes five major geographic divisions and parts of two others. The western portion of the reservation is characterized by late Navajo settlement (after 1868) and by incorporation into the reservation after 1880. Participant observation and open-ended interview techniques have been used by the writer as part of a detailed study of one extended kin group in the Kaibito, White Mesa, and Red Lake area. Interviews of a more structured nature have been given in Tuba City by the Project Staff.2 Survey trips have been made to observe settlement patterns in the Painted Desert, Kaibito, and Moenkopi Plateaus. Discussions of Navajo communities have dealt with the natural or environmentally defined community (Hill 1940, Kimball and Provinse 1942), as well as the community defined by the kin and/or clan affiliations of its members (Reichard 1928, Kluckhohn and Leighton 1947). More recent, specific studies have sought to discover the interrelations between social organization and environment (Collier 1951, Ross 1955). These studies, conducted in different parts of the reservation, have not only emphasized regional differences but have also resulted in a considerable number of terms used to describe Navajo social structure in general. In order to bring these different descriptions of the Navajo together, this paper presents an analysis of the literature before attempting a broad presentation of data from the Western Navajo.