What was the Navajo currencey?

Answer 1

The Dine' (Navajo) did not have currency prior to contact with Europeans. They did live at the center of an extensive trading network that went far to the south in Mexico for parrot feathers, to the Gulf of Mexico and Baja

for white shells and to the Pacific for abalone shells. Turquoise was one of the things they used to trade for what they wanted in those places. Once they had contact with the Spanish they gained horses and sheep and traded them. In traditional Navajo society having four things means you are wealthy: your own house, lots of livestock, children, and a deep ritual knowledge. They also came to work silver and turquoise jewelry and make rugs which were used as a type of currency during the trading post era. Women and men would wear their wealth and when they needed seed corn or money for a horse or wagon they would pawn the items at the trading post which acted as informal banks. When the sheep or wool or corn was sold the jewelry was redeemed. The word

for money in Dine' Bizaad

( navajo

language) is Beso

which comes from. the Spanish word peso. There are very few words borrowed in navajo

so it perhaps indicates it was a new concept. Although perhaps not because the word for car ( a new concept) is made up not borrowed, chidi,

form the sound early cars made; chidi,

chidi,

chidi.