The Social Consequences of a Dry Well1

Abstract

THIS paper will attempt to describe in some detail the responses of a Navajo extended family when confronted with a diminishing water supply. Inasmuch as the responses were both internal and external to the group, the material will as far as possible be presented in two sections; the first, how the extended family met the challenge of a drought by activating relationships between itself and other extended families and finally through recourse to the modern political institutions of the reservation. The second will attempt to show how the relationships within the group were changed due to the drought. I will further attempt to relate this single case to what appear to be more general statements about residential mobility in societies with a commitment to animal husbandry. The area in which the field work was carried out is that central portion of the Navajo Reservation officially known as District Four but commonly referred to as Pifion, in reference to the major settlement in the area. In Pifion two trading stores, a government school, a clinic, two part time missions, a chapter house, a warehouse, a rodeo arena and a tribal corral compose what is the social, political, and economic center of a widely dispersed community of from 3500 to 5000 persons. Although many of the residents of the area work at wage labor or receive various forms of retirement or relief payments, the economic, social, and cultural foundation of the area is pastoralism.2 Every Navajo who identifies himself with the area and considers it as his home has some interest in, and obligation toward, one or more flocks of sheep. Most families also engage in dry farming of corn, pumpkins, squash, watermelons and beans, but erratic and scanty rainfall precludes any extensive development of agriculture. Most fields are small and rather casually tended and, as compared to the flocks and herds, command rather scant attention from the farmers. The alluvial flanks of the mesas and hills of the area are dotted with abandoned fields which are growing back to sage brush and scanty grass. In some cases these are exhausted fields but in many other cases they are simply fields which failed to make a crop due to lack of rainfall. In a few comparatively well-watered spots, somewhat larger and more permanent fields occur, but these are rare. A few attempts are made to divert water from gullies into the fields during cloudbursts but, once again, due to the lack of rain, gullies may never have enough water to divert. The largest field recorded by me was perhaps 20 acres in a particularly favorable spot, owned by a large polygynous family, many of whom lived miles from the field. Other fields generally averaged less than half of this size.