Navajo Hogans

The Navajo have traditionally been nomadic sheep herders in the arid southwest for the last 500 years. Navajo society is matrilineal so the female identifies herself with her maternal clan, and women control the resources such as property and livestock. Today the Navajo reservation surrounds the Hopi reservation, who historically were agriculturalists rather than herders. Read about the Navajo-Hopi land disputes.
The Navajo origin myth, spirituality, and spatial arrangements form a unity with three levels: homeland, hogan, and sand paintings. The traditional Navajo hogan is built around four posts, each representing one of the scared mountains of their homeland. The door of the hogans face EAST; men sit in the SOUTH; women, NORTH; and guests, WEST. Indian religions, as illustrated by the Navajo here, are directly linked to the land in general and to specific holy sites.
 

Why are Navajo houses scattered rather than clustered together as in Hopi villages?
Answers:
  • herders follow flocks of sheep to wherever pasture and water are found. They need large areas of desert and semi-desert areas to survive -- hence, their houses are scattered.
  • agriculturalists, such as the Hopi, live together  and cultivating fields.
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    Navajo Reservation: Read an article about the Navajo in 2008.

  • largest Indian reservation, larger than West Virginia

  • the most populous -- one in 8 American Indians is a Navajo

  • 75 % live on the reservation to which the tribe was forcibly moved in 1868

  • of the 30,000 existing homes occupied by Navajo members, 80 % lack plumbing, telephones, or electricity

    Life on the Navajo reservation:

  • suicide rate is 30 % higher than the U.S. average

  • more than 50 % of them live below the poverty line

  • unemployment is 35 % in the larger towns on the reservation, such as Shiprock

  • unemployment is as high as 50 % in the rural areas

  • income per person is $4,100 per year: about the same as Brazil; the U.S. average is $30,000

    Sources:
    1) "A red giant stirs," The Economist, 23 November 1996, p. 33
    2) "Indian housing: Hands in the till," The Economist, 22 March 1997, p. 30

     

    Created by Ingolf Vogeler on 1 June 1996; last revised on 10 April 2008.