Navajo << NAV uh hoh >>, also spelled Navaho, are one of the largest Native American tribes in the United States. According to the 2020 U.S. census, there are about 315,000 Navajo. The Navajo reservation, which covers 16 million acres (6.5 million hectares), is the nation’s biggest reservation. It includes parts of Arizona, New Mexico, and Utah. The Navajo call themselves Diné << dihn EH >>, meaning the people.
Many Navajo live on the Navajo reservation. Some of the people live in traditional tribal houses called hogans, which are made of earth and logs (see Hogan). Many Navajo practice the tribal religion. Large numbers of the tribe are farmers or sheep ranchers, but others are engineers, miners, teachers, or technicians. Skilled Navajo craftworkers weave wool rugs and blankets and make turquoise jewelry. The Navajo earn millions of dollars yearly from mineral leases on reservation land. Tribal and federal governments are important sources of employment on the Navajo reservation. Diné College, the first community college owned and operated by Indigenous (native) Americans, is in Tsaile, Arizona, near Lukachukai, on the reservation.
About A.D. 1000, the ancestors of the Navajo migrated to what is now the southwestern United States from present-day Alaska and Canada. Their Pueblo neighbors taught them to raise crops. During religious rituals, Navajo medicine men and medicine women created symbolic sand paintings to help heal the sick (see Sand painting).
During the 1600’s, the Navajo began to raise sheep. An increasing number of white settlers established ranches on the Navajo lands, and the Navajo fought to drive the ranchers away. In 1863 and 1864, U.S. Army troops led by Kit Carson destroyed the farms, livestock, and homes of the Navajo. In 1864, the soldiers forced about 8,000 Navajo to march more than 300 miles (480 kilometers) to Fort Sumner, New Mexico. The Navajo call this march the “Long Walk.” Several thousand people died during the march and their imprisonment at the fort. In 1868, Navajo leaders negotiated a settlement that set up the Navajo reservation within part of the Navajo homelands.
The Navajo reservation surrounds the Hopi Reservation. The two tribes have disagreed over land ownership and use for many years, and the U.S. government has tried to solve some of these disputes. In 1974, Congress gave each tribe half of a 1,800,000-acre (730,000-hectare) land area in Arizona that the tribes had used jointly since 1962. However, many members of the Navajo tribe refused to move off the Hopi land. In the early 1990’s, the Navajo and Hopi tribes reached an agreement, allowing Navajo families to remain on Hopi land for 75 years, living under Hopi law. Congress ratified this agreement in 1996. By the early 2000’s, most Navajo families had either relocated off Hopi land or had signed an agreement with the Hopi tribe.
