Navajo Indians

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There are many well known Navajo people. Narbona, Manuelito, Hoskininni Ganado Mucho, Henry Chee Dodge, Annie Dodge Wauneka, Peterson Zah are some welll known leaders from the historical period to now.

There are many well known writiers such as Luci Tapahonso, artists such as Shonto Begay and Gorman, Harrison Begay and Hosteen Klah, code talkers such as Chester Nez, physicists such as Fred Begay, doctors such as Lori Arviso Alvord, musicians like Carlos Nakai, Radmilla Cody and Blackfire, and athelietes such as Notah Begay and Jacoby Ellsbury.

Yes! Check the related link.

As of 2012 there are over 300,000 enrolled members of the Navajo Nation. Not only are they still alive but this is more Navajo than there have ever been. They are thriving.

In 1864 there were between 15,000 and 20,000 Navajo. In 1868 there were about 10,00- 15,000. By 1900 there were about 30,000. They have increased tenfold since then. The Navajo Nation land area has gone from 5,200 square miles in 1868 to 27,425 square miles today. They also have the largest irrigated farm in the United States.

The Navajo have a very different and larger sense of personal autonomy than most American families. From the time a child first laughs it is seen as a fully autonomous being. This means parents explain things and teach things but do not order children to do things (or anyone else). It is thought that they can learn from their own mistakes better. So children are and were seldom scolded. If there was any discipline it was often done by your mother's brother (maternal uncle) not your father. You belong to your mother's clan. It is said you are "born for" you father's clan. A child is expected to gradually learn what it is to understand clan and family relationships and the relationships to the world. This is called K'e. A child is expected to slowly learn to moderate and control his/her emotions and speech and actions. To be balanced and moderate. To not be able to control them is a sign of being a child. Teaching was and still is seldom done with direct instruction but more with indirect stories. Children are expected to not be lazy, to get up at dawn and help out and to not complain. As they get bigger they were and sometimes today still learn to help out with the sheep and planting and growing corn and other crops. As they get bigger if they were a girl they might learn to help with shearing, sorting, cleaning, carding, spinning, dyeing and weaving the wool. If they were a boy if their father did silverwork or another craft or was a ritual practitioner they might learn to help out. In the older days they would learn to hunt. They would catch rabbits and other small game as kids. today some people still hunt in the mountains but with rifles. They would learn prayers and chants and songs and taboos. Some people still do. About 30-40% are now only christian so they don't today. Everyone is expected to slowly learn how to create and maintain Hozho in their inner and outer worlds. This central Navajo concept encompasses in one word the English ideas of harmony, beauty, the good, health, happiness, and balance. It is both a way to seeing and thinking about the world and a thing to be created. For this reason, perhaps the majority of Navajo take part in some art or craft.
I would like to note that the word "were" is not really appropriate and most Navajo kids would not like it. They ARE. There are 300,000 enrolled Navajo members and most live on or near the Navajo Nation which is where is always has been in the modern states of Arizona, New Mexico and Utah. There are many school on the Navajo Nation and all kids go to K though 12. There is also Dine' college and several other schools for after 12th grade.

No they don't live in tepees

No, Navajo is not a country. Navajo is the name of a Native American tribe. The Navajo Nation is the largest federally recognized tribe in the United States. The Navajo Reservation is located in the southwestern United States in Arizona, New Mexico, and Utah.

to come in a room (one person): yah 'iishááh. Two people: yah 'iit'aash. Three or more : yah 'iikááh

come in (come here): hágo!

The number four is a sacred number for almost all native American people, signifying the four directions, the four winds and the four quarters of a circle which itself symbolizes completeness, the universe and all creation.

For the Navajo there are four sacred mountains, four parts of the day, prayers and ritual phrases are often repeated four times, four parts of your life, four colors, four worlds, in stories things are attempted four times, four original clans, in art four fold symmetry is most popular, and on and on.

It is not that different than how three is common in European culture with three wishes, the Trinity, three sons in stories, three Ages of Man in Greece, three guesses, three billygoats, in Macbeth three witches, and their spell - "Thrice the brindled cat hath mewed", a triskelion design, and so on.

Yes they do. When a Navajo ceremony is taking place people attending dress in their best clothes. What style that is has changed through time. For the last 140 years or so traditional women's dress is a tiered sometimes satin pleated skirt, long-sleeved often velveteen blouse, turquoise jewelry, concho and sash belts, and moccasins. For men they also wear jewelry, along with a shirt, pants and moccasins. Men and women with long hair wear it tied in a twisted bun with string or yarn wrapped around the middle of it. It is sometimes called a chongo, in Navajo -Tsiiyéél. It is in memory of Changing Woman and represents knowledge..

The girl at the center of a Kinaalda, a Navajo coming of age ceremony wears older traditional clothing in memory of Changing Woman (an important goddess). It is sort of like a Navajo rug with arm and head holes and a belt. Her hair is in a loose ponytail.

In some ceremonies especial the one called by outsiders, Yei bichei (in Navajo: Tłʼééʼjí, Nightway), there are masked dancers in costume of nine different gods.

The navajo word for ancient enemy or ancient one is anasazi

I believe this is how, however I'm not sure of the spelling so I will spell it like it sounds... ha diesh ah bona ah

both of them did

Dome shaped houses are called Hogans. There are many different styles, but the one feature is the entrance must always face East, toward the rising sun.

They fought the muzielunh

tribe

áwí

pick the land make messures on how big the house is make flooring make walls and roof and put in outlets and electricity and finally furniture

If you speak Navajo it is easy. Maybe it would take you a few weeks to memorize and practice it.

If you are a native English ( or Japanese) speaker it could be very hard. They have many consonants that we do not have. They are hard for many people. The vowels are tonal: low, high, rising , falling. There are nasalized vowels too. It sounds a bit like the on sound at the end of the French word "bon". There are long and short vowels which are are to hear the difference. There are glottal stops. Some words have a final h sound that is hard to hear too.

One easy example is the word for "horse". It is written: łį́į́ . It is pronuced with the vowels nasalized and high tone. The L sound is like the LL in Welsh. It is a non voiced L sound in which you breathe out while holding the tongue in the L position. Goat is another hard word -- tł'ízí. That is a glottalized tl sound at the beginning. And both vowels are high tone. Even the word for " my mother" could give you away. Shima is not a word shima' means my mother.

One way to say Pumpkin in Navajo is naayízí. The Pumpkin you see on Halloween are usually called naayízí łich'íí'ígíí.

The Navajo people live in an area between the boundaries marked by the four sacred mountains and centered around the two central scared mountains. This older central part in just south of where the emergence place is said to be and is sometimes called Dine' Tah. These boundary mountains make a diamond shape in north eastern Arizona, north western New Mexico, southern Colorado and southern Utah. It is the high Colorado Plateau, Four Corners region. The four mountains are, always starting in the east, Mt Blanca, Mt Taylor, San Fransisco Peaks and Mt Hesperus.

Both the old oral history and religious stories and the modern archeology say that this area south of the La Plata mountains in the lower San Juan river valley in northern New Mexico is where people recognizable as Navajo (as opposed to other Apache related groups) first appeared about 900-1100 years ago.

Today the Navajo Nation occupies 27,000 square miles in the western and central portion of this region. This is about the size of Holland and Belgium put together. There are 300,000 tribal members.

There are today 21 different Pueblo people. They speak 8 different languages in four different language families (depending on how you count a language vs a dialect). They are also often grouped in 2 different broad culture groups based on similarity of structure and creation myths. The majority are along the Rio Grande valley in New Mexico. The rest are the Hopi (and Tewa at Hano) at the Hopi Mesas in Arizona , Zuni, Acoma and Laguna in western New Mexico. They all have lived in more or less the same places for 700 to 1100 years depending on the tribe. Some have been there since Anasazi times others migrated to where they are now between 1200-1300 AD as the Anasazi culture changed to modern Pueblo. All of the Pueblo people have creation stories that include a migration phase and most have stories of the emergence up from worlds before this one (as do the Navajo). Some have stories of specific clans that came from specific Anasazi sites. Today there are about 35,000 - 40,000 Pueblo people in Arizona and New Mexico.

Adapt

They were hunters and gatherers