The New Student's Reference Work/Navajo Indians

Navajo (nä′vä-hō) Indians, a tribe of American Indians belonging to the Athabascan or Tinney stock. They call themselves Yutahenne. They occupy a fine reservation in Arizona and New Mexico, and are civilized in a good degree. They carry on farming, though their utensils are mostly hoes and primitive implements, such as sharp sticks. Their leading crops are corn, beans, melons, pumpkins and wheat, and they have orchards of peaches and apricots. Their reserve includes 5,468,160 acres of land. They number about 17,000. While not given to fighting, they have much spirit in defending their rights. There is a school on their reservation, but the Indians do not compel their children to attend it. The houses are rude booths or huts built of sticks, sods or bushes. As they never enter a house where a person has died, when a death occurs, the corpse is buried by pulling out the prop-sticks and letting the sods and sticks fall on it. The Navajos are strong and well-built, and are expert horsemen and herders.