I think that they used to believe that women were no good as the leaders because they get off track and become to lax. Therefore they thought men should lead the way since they believed this was the matter of surviving or not. There has not been a women president of the navajo yet but they are in the governmental statuses. They have power and are in control of leading their tribe and bettering it. They have come along way just as America
There boundaries were set by an imposing treaty of 1868. The total number of Navajo people totaled roughly two hundred thousand but this numbered varied due to the different regions of the United States. The strong social system for the Navajo people is one of the conceptual or symbolic system. Social organization is centered around motherhood. It is found in the life, reproduction, and subsistence.
Each member of the family plays an important role, allowing them to join together in harmony. The relationships in Navajo society are very strong. Their system is organized in roles and expected role behavior which is used by the whole society. Every role open to man is also open to women leaving little room for economic domination of one partner over the other. The mother is the main provider and authority figure towards the children in the family.
2). The Iroquois kinship is based around family, as stated previously, due to the strong emphasis on family marriage is affected by the kinship. In Iroquois culture children are encouraged to marry their cross-cousins in what is called a sibling-exchange system. By doing this the Iroquois ensure that the families wealth will remain with them as well as reaffirms the family’s alliances between generations. The Iroquois women were, more or less, considered the ‘head of the household’ with this power came the ability to easily terminate marriage.
The Navajo Society The Navajo Society The Navajo People have led a pastoral lifestyle and existence in the Southwest United States with limited space on reservations and have been able to maintain a strong sense of their identity, social structure and culture along the way. In this paper I hope to explain how the Navajo culture has persevered throughout the many challenges and changes over the last three centuries. Although it is difficult for most outsiders to confine the social organization of the Navajo into a certain category, a definite system is present with most emphasis on motherhood. Understood as a conceptual or symbolic social system, “motherhood is found in life, reproduction, and subsistence”, (Witherspoon, 1970, p.55). The
Navajo Outline Bobby T. Boston Introduction to Cultural Anthropology Instructor: Jennifer Hotzman January 21, 2013 Navajo I. Introduction The Navajo Indian tribe has established a culture and way of life that has overcome obstacles. The Navajo thrive as a family oriented entity that progresses because they rely heavily on each other. Their way of life has made significant impacts on gender roles, sickness and healing and even their kinship. The culture and traditions of the Navajo tribe continues to be respected and is influential in their way of life.
“Navajo religion is highly ritualized. It is formal and precise. Firmly rooted in the Southwestern landscape, it concerns itself with maintaining individual and communal life and health. It's main event is the "chant"--a several day and night ceremony designed to reorder one's relationship with the powers of creation. Families choose to sponsor chants at times of crisis or potential disorder.
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.
Navajo women used their sheep's wool to weave blankets and clothing for family use and for inter- and intertribal trade. By the early nineteenth century, Navajo blankets were prized within a wide regional market for their quality--so tightly woven they were waterproof--and their beauty” (Moore, 2001). Today the Navajo people are still practicing many of the traditions that were around in the past. Although some things have changed, gender roles are no longer as strict as they once were. Many men are now the farmers of the household and it is not uncommon for women to join the army.
Other people in my community are treated differently, but not because of their heritage, but of their lack to become Americans. Many people here in Riverside never learn English and they do not try to embrace life in America. Instead many people live in their own “Little Mexico” here in Riverside. These are the people that get treated differently because they are not trying to become Americans they are just Mexicans living in America. Really I think that this is a problem all over the Nation with many new immigrants who do not want to become Americans they just want to live here and make money with out trying to be part of