Abstract
Anthropologists have puzzled over the seeming "fuzziness" in Navajo social organization for more than forty years. Because Navajos belong to matrilineal clans, it has usually been assumed that the smaller and more localized units of social organization also have a matrilineal basis. However, data from the western Navajo community of Shonto clearly show that this is not the case. Coresident and cooperating kin groups are the product not of formal descent rules but of situational residence decisions that are more or less unpredictable. Published data from other studies suggests that the same is true in many Navajo communities. It is argued that Navajo cooperating groups must be understood as ancestor-based, not as unilineal descent groups. This finding is congruent with many other recent critiques of lineage theory.
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