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Navajo Indians
One of the largest of the Native American Tribes, they lived in the Southwest of the United States and Northern Mexico.
1,124 Questions
Why did the Navajo build hogans in the desert?
Most of the Navajo Nation is at the elevation of between 5000 and 8000 feet. Some mountains are 10,000ft. It is cold with snow in the winter and it gets cold at night. Hogans are warm in the winter and cool in the summer because of the thermal mass of the earth on top of the log structure. In places where it got too hot during the summer in the daytime, people built brush shade shelters or ramadas called chaha'oh.
What were Navajo homes made out of in winter?
Traditional Navajo homes are called hogans. In the Navajo language it is spelled hooghan. They are made of log structure covered with earth. The roof is a corbeled arch. They always face east. Traditionally, they had a smoke hole and the doorway but no windows. Sometimes they were completely covered with earth other times just the roof was. Sometimes stones were used in construction as well. They had earthen floors. Some Navajo still have hogans today for a home, for a guest house or outbuilding or for ceremonial purposes. There are over 300,000 Navajo tribal members so people live in many different ways. Sometimes they are built of more modern construction materials. They are round, 6, or 8 sided. These are refered to as female hogans. Most things in the Navajo world come in male and female versions (rivers, mountains, rain). The male hogans are seldom seen today.
Hogan were and are used year round. They are warm in the high altitude winter and cool in the hot summer. In some places for summer time, especially at summer pasture areas for the sheep people lived in summer shade shelters. These are a framework logs with cut branches with leaves or needles laid across for shade.
What is the Navajo translation for wolachii?
The nearest word in genuine Navajo is wóláchíí, meaning a red ant or harvester ant.
It comes from a Spanish hearing of a Tewa word meaning "those who farm in the wide fields in the river bottoms".
What are the six parts of the Navajo Justice and Harmony Ceremony?
Perhaps you mean the hozhooji naat'aanii? This is the word for the Peacemaking and Restorative Justice program on the Navajo Nation. It is an attempt to bring more traditional values back into the justice system on the Navajo Nation. It is a system and sometimes refeered to as a ceremony but it is not a traditional ceremonial chantway or structure.
The name means chantway or ceremony of hózhǫ́. This concept does not occur in American English. It means roughly: beauty and harmony, health, peace, balance, dynamic symmetry, happiness and contentment, wholeness, goodness all in one over arching idea. The second word means: one who leads to the proper way though speaking (from to orate or move one's head).
I only know of four steps not six parts in this peacemaking process that Cheif Justicie Yazzie implimented. They are: prayer to begin and have the powers of the Holy People present, talking it out with the families of both parties, lecture (not a good English term, more of a tying what happened to traditional stories), and reconciliation with symbolic restituition.
Four and six are important symbolic numbers in Navajo tradition so perhaps two more have been added since I learned of it. There are four sacred boundry marking mountains and two sacred center mountains so that would make sense.
Why are Native Americans excluded from history?
History books were primarily written by non natives and therefore written from their own point of view. Additionally, the Indian, generally, was not viewed as anything more than an animal until the very late 1800's when they were finally declared Humans under the law. Therefore their contributions became inconsequential. That is changing as more Native Americans are writing their own histories.
History is always written by the victor. There is not total exclusion of Native Americans from history, however their perspectives are not often represented. And perspectives of these Peoples has changed over time.
In the first years of East Coast contact, Native Americans were necessary for the survival of the colonists. There were grave misunderstandings of attitudes of the native cultures because of differences between them and those who came from Europe. As time progressed, tribes became allies and enemies and everything in between. Also, Native Americans are not one people with one culture throughout the contiguous United States.
Often, that which is not understood or considered praise-worthy is excluded from another culture's history except as a cautionary tale.
How do you say jumper in Navajo?
If you mean a jumper as in sweater or pullover, the Navajo climate can get very cold in the winter with snow and cold at night a sweater would be useful, some areas are above 8,000 feet am lot is also cold steppe environment in the winter, so the word for a sweater or sweatshirt is éétsoh naatsʼǫǫdii or ééʼnaatsʼǫǫdii .
If you mean "one who jumps" that is much harder because there are som many ways to say "jumping" in Navajo for example to jump away is different than to jump down and from jump out of the water. And it depends how many are jumping.
To jump down is :dah nishtjį́į́d
ones who jumps might be: dah neeshtjį́į́dígíí(but i may have conjugated it wrong)
What is the Navajo word for lover?
to make love to him or her: bich'į' 'ashjił
Normally to make a noun as in "one who is" you add ii or in this case nii at the end, and to make it "my" change the "bi" to "shi". However , in this case I am not sure because 'ashjiłnii is more like promiscuous one or slutty one, so I am not sure of the translation. Another possibility is : 'ashk'eed which is to have sex (and is vulgar). Or na'acha. There are a few more words used for sex.
To be in love with him/her is : ayóí 'óosh'ní ---(maybe you can add nii at the end to mean "one I love' but in English "lover' really usually means "one I am sleeping with".
What kind of relationship did the Navajo have with the Europeans?
they were very close but once and a while they would fight!
What does the Navajo treaty say?
The navajo treaty talks about all the agreements made between the indians and the government. There are a number of treaties the united states and the navajo nation but many so not know how important these treaties were and still are. The very existence of these treaties establishes that hte united states must treat the navajo nation as a sovereign nation.
What do the colors of white blue black and yellow mean in Navajo?
White is for the eastern sacred mountain and all it represents. Blue -the southern, yellow- the western and black -the northern mountain.
Each mountain has a time of year, time of life, time of day, clan, jewel, gender, animals, plants and deities, and philosophical meaning associated with it.
What type of home did the Navajo live in?
Many Navajo, or Dine', still live in the traditional hogan. It is a 6 or 8 sided building made by stacking logs similarly to a log cabin. When finished it appears to be round. The roof is made of smaller diameter wood that is covered with brush to fill the holes and earth over. The smoke hole is centered on the roof. The door faces east to greet the new day's sun. There are no windows.
wólázhiní -- black ant
wólá-- ants , but usually combined with a verbal-adjectival qualifier
wóláchíí naat'agí -- flying red ant.How do you spell bear in Navajo?
Shash is the word for bear in Diné bizaad (Navajo language).
Shashtsoh is grizzly bear.
Shash łizhinii is black bear.
The "spelling" system was developed in the 1940s.
The L with a line through it is a sound that is like one in Welsh. You put your tongue in the L position and blow out around the sides.
How do you say nobly born in Navajo?
There were not classes or aristocracy in Navajo tradition or history so there is not really exactly the concept of "noble birth".
You could say "born for a leader" (a leader was his father):
naatʼáanii báshÃshchÃÃn -- I am born for or child of a leader.
naatʼáanii bájÃshchÃnÃ-- one who is born for a leader
naatʼáanii yáshchÃÃn -- he/she is born for...
Or maybe "born for hózhÇ«Ì" might be a concept that would be sort of analogous. :
hózhÇ«Ì báshÃshchÃÃn -- I am born for (child of, my father is) peace and beauty and harmony
hózhÇ«Ì bájÃshchÃnà -- one who is born for (child of)
hózhÇ«Ì yáshchÃÃn -- he/she is born for
HózhÇ«Ì is an imprtant concept in Navajo culture, maybe the central one. It means a state and process of beauty and harmony, peace, balance, happiness and contentment, wholeness, goodness, health and dynamic symmetry.
One might say is holds a similar place in Navajo culture that nobility did in old European culture.
