The Navajo Culture
David Rodriguez
Introduction to Cultural Anthropology ANT: 101
Amy Van Surksum
June 24, 2013

The Navajo Culture
American culture is made up of many different people, and many of those people come from Indian tribes. The United States Governments Federal Register lists 566 tribes recognized as of August 2012. One of those tribes is the Navajo which can be found primarily in the states of Arizona, New Mexico, and Utah. Navajo culture is one that many people associate with by what is portrayed in movies. People view the culture as land raiding individuals that pillaged and wreaked havoc with anyone and anything they came in contact with.
Navajo started from the beginning in what is known as Changing Woman, and is one of the myths in Navajo belief which is identified as both creator and protector. She is the first and pre-emanate mother that has bestowed certain ceremonies that protect the people from evil forces. Changing Woman is believed to have lived on a small pacific Island where she created the Earth Surface People along with the Dine` known as the Navajo. Changing Woman sent the people on a long migration when she saw that the island was getting to small from the people multiplying. Changing Woman did not send them empty handed, so she sent them on the journey with sheep and horses to the land between the sacred mountains. In the early eighteenth century is when Navajo pastoralism arose, men and women incorporated livestock and before long families were spreading out across the land promoting patterns of transhumance, the land occupied would now be called Dine` Bike’yah. Prior to the seventeenth century people did not know much about the Navajo living in the mountains because not much was written about their existence, the only thing people knew about them were names given to describe them by the Spanish such as “querechos”