year was favorable, the weather fine, and they were all anxious to get the sheep and goats and annuities."268
13. In 1890 a count of these Indians was made as a part of the Eleventh Census of the United States.297 Before the count was begun, the writer was informed by one of the enumerators that the plan to be employed was this: The Navaho country was to be divided into a number of districts, and a special enumerator was to be sent to each district at the same time to visit each hut and take the number of each family. Whether this method was carried out, the report of the Eleventh Census does not tell us. But this plan, while probably the best that could be employed at the time with the means allotted, was very imperfect and admitted of numerous sources of error, of which two may be specified. Many huts might easily be passed unnoticed, for reasons already given, and this would make the enumeration too low. Many families might easily have been counted in more than one district, for the Navaho frequently shifts his abode, and this would make the count too high. The result of this enumeration was to give the tribe a population of 17,204 for that year. White men, living in the Navaho country at the time, generally considered the estimate excessive. If the count of 1869 be approximately correct, that of 1890 is probably not. It is not reasonable to suppose that by natural increase alone—and no other source of increment is known—the tribe should have nearly doubled in twenty-one years. It would require birth-rates much higher and death-rates much lower than those commonly found in Indian tribes to double the population in that time. The Indian mother is not prolific.
14. The Navahoes say that during their captivity they had much sickness and diminished in numbers; but nothing has been found in official reports to corroborate such statements. All who have any intimate knowledge of the Navahoes agree that they have increased rapidly since they were restored to their ancient homes in 1869. During nearly fifteen years that the author has had opportunity to observe them, he has noticed no marked signs of physical degeneration among them. Their general health and their power of resisting disease appeared about as good in 1894 as in 1880. Consumption and scrofula, those greatest enemies of our reservation Indians, have not yet begun to trouble the Navahoes. The change from the rude hut to the close stone house, which is rapidly going on among this people, is likely to affect their health in the future, and probably not for the better. Fortunately for them, they have little fancy for stoves, but prefer open fireplaces such as the Pueblos and Mexicans use. In the year 1888, while the writer was absent from New Mexico, they had an epidemic of throat disease, the
