9781422278871

27,000 squaremiles (70,000 square kilometers) in Arizona, New Mexico, and Utah. Larger than most states in the country, it’s home to almost 300,000 native people who can trace their history back a thousand years. A New Home At the turnof thefirstmillennium, the people now known as the Navajo livedmuch farther north, in what is now Canada. Slowly, they migrated south. Scientists don’t know ex- actly when they arrived, but agree they were established by the 1500s, and possibly earlier. The Navajo were not the only inhabitants of this land. The Pueblo Indians already lived there, and, over time, the Navajo adopted some customs and lifestyles of the Pueblo. At first the Navajo were a semi- nomadic tribe. They depended on hunting and gathering, and moved around according to the season. Eventually they learned farming, pottery, and weaving from their Pueblo neighbors, and became more settled. Native peoples did not al-

The Navajo Flag Every picture tells a story, and the pictures on the Na- vajo flag tell many. Each one is part of the evolution of the Navajo Nation and its people. A dark brown patch on the flag shows the original boundaries of the reservation established by the 1868 treaty with the US government. Fanning out from that, outlined in a lighter brown color, are the current boundaries. The four sacred mountains—in their traditional colors of black, white, blue, and yellow—are shown at the north, south, east, and west. The flag also shows several symbols important to the Navajo way of life. There are traditional corn and livestock, in addition to an oil well, which became another cornerstone of the economy. Over the top stretches a rainbow, symbolizing the sovereignty of Navajo Nation.

ways live peacefully together. The Navajo sometimes raided the Pueblo tribes, taking goods andevenpeopleas their rewards. TheyalsotargetedSpaniardswho

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