How did the Navajo and hopi manage to adapt survive and even grow as a culture?

Answer 1

This is a very good and difficult question. Both the Navajo and Hopi benefited early on by being in a difficult part of the continent which had few resources that white colonists wanted and was not on a major wagon and later train route.

The Hopi had first contact with the Spanish by de Tovar in 1540 but they did not return until 1583, 1598, and 1605. They did not establish a presence however. In 1629 the Spanish started a mission. The Hopi participated in the Pueblo Revolt of 1680 and destroyed the Mission. In 1692 the Spanish tried to start it again. In 1700 all the male converts were killed and the Spanish never returned. The Hopi didn't have much contact with colonial powers until after the Mexican American War in 1846. Mormons started moving in in the 1870s. The US didn't have much economic interest in the area until the uranium boom of the 1950s. They live in an area that kept them safer from diseases. Their economy of small farming did not conflict with white interests. When they contacted new crops that would grow there such as peaches, melons, onions, chilies they added them. This economy could be continued up to the present day. This gives them a strong sense of cultural continuity.

But there were other more elusive reasons that they have thrived. Although the Hopi fought at times, they also had a large cultural interest in peace and that served them well. They have cultural practices that are secret in some aspects even to other tribal members. They have a continual set of seasonal ceremonies that takes commitment to the group. they have a very strongly developed sense of why they live where they do and how their ceremonial activity maintains and sustains the whole world. In their view they chose the harder, more righteous life. These traits in turn impressed important outsiders who respected and defended and supported them against colonial interference from the US government.

The Navajo also benefited in the earlier first contact era with being in the same a remote and undesirable area. They also benefited by their traditional land-use patterns. They had no villages or single area to be controlled in. Their territory was the whole area between the four sacred mountains. They did not have traditional hereditary leadership or unified tribal structure and that could be defeated and controlled. They also have a very strong traditional of personal individual autonomy. Neither the Spanish nor the Mexicans ever controlled the area. The Navajo mobile fighting tactics were very effective. They really didn't come into serious conflict until 1863 when certain leaders in the US Army decided that they should be attacked as their raids on peoples around Santa Fe was felt to benefit the Confederates. Instead of having a single strong and secret traditional the Navajo have had a very adaptable one. They have over and over met other cultures and taken up parts that they liked and made them completely theirs. So the learned corn and squash agriculture and weaving and some cosmological ideas from the Pueblo peoples. They got sheep and goats and horses, peaches, melons, chilies and jewelry from the Spanish. Flour, guns, certain clothing, and now pickup trucks have followed that. At the same time things that they borrowed have been completely "Navajo-ized'. They have borrowed almost no new words but instead make up new ones. Many of the new ideas gained mythic Navajo stories to completely assimilate them. The Navajo are matrilineal and exogamous to such a degree that it is incest to marry into the clan of any of your four grandparents. This means many clans have roots in neighboring tribes which allowed them perhaps to embrace new ideas and expand.

In 1864 came disaster but that in the end was solved too. Kit Carson, largely against his will, was ordered to defeat the Navajo. His scorched earth tactics forced them to internment camps for 4 years. However, there is something very appealing to many key people in the larger Anglo culture about traditional Navajo beliefs and culture. The overwhelming emphasis on Hozho, beauty and balance and health, the tendency to believe moderation in expression was the proper adult mode of communication won over many. The scandals about the corruption at the internment camps were exposed. The Navajo were also forged into perhaps a more united people during this time as a response to the horrible losses. When offered to move to Oklahoma they united and said they would rather die. This shamed those that had imprisoned them. In 1868 they were allowed to return home. They gave up raiding as part of their life ways but they still had sheep and goats and raising corn as traditional occupations. Perhaps the strong matrilineal traditions helped too. The healing chantways and the ideas behind them undoubtedly helped a great deal as well. The emphasis on not holding on to anger, on balance and growth surly was very important. So in the end by 1868, they were back in their traditional lands and able to practice most of their traditional lifestyles and beliefs. They rebuilt their herds and crop lands. They continued to have powerful members of the colonial white establishment who lobbied on their behalf as well. Their lands were expanded over and over until today they are 27,000 sq miles and the population is 300,000. They retained their language loner and better than most people were able to in part because they lived in such a remote place even with the terrible attitudes on of the boarding schools. They still practice their traditional religion and philosophy. The took advantage of changes in law whenever they could, setting up the first tribal college, a representative government with real power, taking over the police and many other activities. They were lucky to have some oil and mineral revenue. They have built large scale tribal agriculture projects.