It is amusing to learn that the ancestors of the Navajo people were hunters and gatherers. All the food that they consumed was purely hunted, and they were nomadic. Their plates were filled with farmed meat and at times vegetables from distant farms. The modern Navajo people, who once did not have sustainable food sources have successfully replaced their small farm, hunting, and fishing with industrial agriculture, a system characterized by single-crop farms. Before this, their lifestyle was purely nomadic since they did not have permanent dwellings ( Isaac et al., 208 ). It’s their migration to Canada that transformed the Navajo into what they are today.
As are known today, the Navajo people are the largest Indian tribe that is still in existence in the U.S. Throughout their history; the Navajo were known to be semi-nomadic and hunter-gatherers ( Ornelas et al., 2018 ). They could settle next to water sources where they could hunt and farm to survive. Finally, the Navajo settled in the southwest on a reservation whose size was 25, 000 square miles. The Anglo-America colonization did not mean good for the Navajo people who by 1860s lost their land due to mass relocation, a treaty that was signed in 1862. All the Navajo’s farms were destroyed by the U.S Army, and they were forced to migrate, walking over two hundred miles their new barren home at Fort Sumner in what was known as the “Long Walk.” At Fort Sumner life was unbearable. Many Navajos succumbed, and the U.S government allowed them to return to their old land.
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Traditionally, the Navajo farmed squash, corn, and beans, but after settling in the southwest, they adapted to other new farming methods due to insufficient precipitation. The Pueblo tribe introduced the Navajo into a new technique known as dryland farming that the Navajo have maintained to date. Using this technique, the Navajo learned how to utilize little water on their farms. They used to till their soil so that it can absorb water quickly, maintained flat cropland to minimize any chances of surface runoff, they planted trees around farms to cut down evaporation rates and also picked weeds from farms to reduce competition on the available water with the main crops. The Navajo became the masters of preservation ( Gurney et al., 2015) .
Looking at the history of the Navajo, it can be concluded that their adaptability and the resilient level is high. In the modern day, the Navajo have supplemented their agriculture with cattle, goat and sheep keeping. In some regions of Southwest United States, farming has surpassed herding thanks to the Navajo. In so doing, the Navajo have been transformed from being horticulturalists to agriculturalists. In the Navajo society, women and girls are the ones who the wealth because all the sheep is under their care, men, on the other hand, own horses and cattle ( Isaac et al., 208 ). The products obtained from the herd are shared: meat is contributed by every owner and while wool is sold communally by the head of the residents for the benefit of the group.
As the Navajo continued to grow and adjust to their environment these few millenniums, their beliefs, life experiences and values have shaped them to who they are now. They have had sufficient time to expand their ranges of cattle and sheep they keep as well as adapting to the changes they went through particularly after the “Long walk.” Al these have affected how they feed, associate with other communities. They have also demonstrated their worthiness to different groups of Native America and Europeans ( Isaac et al., 208 ). Although their culture has changed, it is due to the combination of trade and commerce with the Apache, Pueblo, Comanche, Ute and the Spanish people.
References
Gurney, R. M., Caniglia, B. S., Mix, T. L., & Baum, K. A. (2015). Native American food security and traditional foods: a review of the literature. Sociology Compass , 9 (8), 681-693.
Isaac, G., Finn, S., Joe, J. R., Hoover, E., Gone, J. P., Lefthand-Begay, C., & Hill, S. (2018). Native American Perspectives on Health and Traditional Ecological Knowledge. Environmental health perspectives , 126 (12), 125002.
Ornelas, I. J., Osterbauer, K., Woo, L., Bishop, S. K., Deschenie, D., Beresford, S. A., & Lombard, K. (2018). Gardening for Health: Patterns of Gardening and Fruit and Vegetable Consumption Among the Navajo. Journal of community health , 43 (6), 1053-1060.
