Page:Memoirs of the American Folk-Lore Society V.djvu/23

Rh 8. Pasturage—Flocks and Herds.—While the Navaho Indians cultivate the soil, it is evident, from what has been said, that they do not do so to any great extent. Their crops furnish but a small part of their subsistence. But their sterile country is fairly well adapted to the raising of sheep and goats. These form their chief food supply, and the former their principal source of wealth. With the money received for their wool they purchase flour and other provisions from the white traders, as well as various articles of luxury and utility. They possess many ponies and ride a great deal. They raise a few neat cattle.

9. As domesticated sheep and goats were unknown in America previous to the discovery by Columbus, and were unknown in New Mexico previous to the expedition of Coronado in A.D. 1540, it follows that the Navahoes have not been shepherds for many centuries. It would appear from their legends that it is not many years since they have become a prosperous and wealthy people (and such they now are, for savages); that in old days they were even poor hunters; and that they lived largely on the seeds of wild plants and on small animals that they caught in fall-traps. How meagrely [sic] they were dressed and equipped the legends also tell us. (See pars. 382, 384, 391.)

10. No exact census of the tribe has ever been taken, and it would not now be an easy task to take one, because the Navahoes are scattered so widely and over such a wild and rugged territory. Their low huts, built in tangled cedar-woods or in regions of scattered rocks, are often so obscurely hidden that one may ride through a cluster of a dozen inhabited houses thinking there is not