Cultural Anthropology: The Navajo Culture

The Navajo
Daniell
ANT101 Introduction to Cultural Anthropology
Prof. Je

The Navajo The Dineh or "The People" as the Navajo call themselves are a horticultural society that migrated to the Southwest between the fourteenth and fifteenth century. They relied on what little food that they could hunt or gather but because of the lack of water in the region, grew to largely depend on their herds of sheep as both a source of food and wealth in their society. The Navajo are made up of a matrilineal society, where the women took care of the family and the household, while the men go out to hunt. They are a very spiritual people that believe in the balance and harmony of one’s life, which is obtained through many religious rituals and…show more content…
To maintain this in even an extreme circumstance if a Navajo man did not have a daughter, his property would leave most of his property to his sister’s children, in order to maintain this matrilineal line. As much as a Navajo child is raised with the freedom to roam around and discover who they are, there is more pressure put on the girls to take up the womanly roles of this culture and can be easily seen in the “Kinaalda” or the ceremony for maturity for a Navajo girl. The “kinaalda” begins on the fourth night of a girls first menstrual cycle where she will wait till the following morning to bathe and dress in her finest clothes to she stretches herself face downward on a blanket just outside the hogan, with her head toward the door. A sister or aunt will then proceeds to symbolically remold her. Her arms and legs are straightened, her joints smoothed, and muscles pressed to make her truly shapely. After that the most industrious and energetic of the comely women in the immediate neighborhood is called in to dress the girl’s hair in a particular form of knot and wrap it with deerskin strings, called a tsklolh. Should there be any babies or little tots about the home, the girl must go to them and placing a hand under each ear, lifting them by the neck to…show more content…
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