9781422278871

N A V A J O N A T I O N

The Navajo Nation: An Introduction

I n the rugged country of the southwest United States, there are four mountains sacred to theNavajo people. They’re hundreds of miles apart, located in the states of Colorado, New Mexico, and Arizona, but together they anchor the traditional land of the Navajo. In between their peaks is a spectacular and varied land of hard rock and dry desert, high cliffs and deep canyons, powerful rivers and sprawling forests. In Navajo legend, the Holy People gave this area to the Diné—theNavajoword for “the people.” It was theirs to use and to care for, and throughout their history, the Navajo have built a culture closely tied to the land itself. Today, the Navajo are a federally recognized Indian tribe. Most of them live in the Navajo Nation, an Indian reservation coveringmore than

Words to Understand assimilate  to make one kind of people more similar to another jurisdiction  the area where a government has authority or control nomadic  always moving around, often to find new food or other resources

sovereignty  the power of a country to govern itself treaty  a written agreement between two or more parties

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