By Norma Libman Sponsored by the Paul C. S. Carpenter History Project and funded by the King/Carpenter Charitable Trust Simon Ortiz grew up on the pueblo in the town of McCartys (“Deetseyamah”), and worked in the uranium mines, served in the military, attended college, and then took up what…
La Vara By Michael Miller On December 27, 1888 the Surveyor General for the Territory of New Mexico, George Julian, publicly proclaimed that, “ninety per cent of the land entries in the territory were fraudulent.” A land title study conducted by the New Mexico State Planning Office in 1971 uncovered evidence…
By Jessica R. Metcalfe While flipping through Native Peoples magazine one day in 2003, I came across a photo spread of contemporary Native high fashion. It intrigued me how the designers incorporated elements from their cultures’ traditional art forms into high fashion. Who were these designers, how did they…
First grown in Mexico about 5,000 years ago, corn soon became the most important food crop in Central and North America. Throughout the region, Native Americans, Maya, Aztecs, and others worshiped corn deities and developed a variety of stories about the origin, planting, growing and harvesting of corn (also…
“Were it not for the Navajos, the Marines would never have taken Iwo Jima.” –Major Howard Conner, 4th Marine Division Association Reunion, Chicago 1969 By Suzanne Stamatov When armies and marines engage in combat, they need a communications system to remain in contact with their fellow troops and their…
Musings on the Navajo Nation and the Ideology of Development and the Politics of Tradition By Jennifer Denetdale, Ph.D. For most of my career as a scholar, I have been interested in myriad ways that the Diné/Navajos have been represented by generations of travelers, writers, anthropologists, federal policy makers,…
By William H. Wroth In 1855 New Mexico territorial governor David Meriwether made treaties with, among other tribes, both the Mescalero Apaches and the Navajos. Although the U.S. Congress did not ratify these treaties, they served to inaugurate a brief period of peaceable relations between the United States and…
By Lauren Gray Though the Spanish and later the Mexican government had their own delicate relationships with traders in the Southwest and New Mexico, the American trader has had arguably the greatest impact on Navajo indigenous economy, livelihood and culture. Over the past 150 years, the traders’ presence has…
By Mary M. Serna and James W. Steely The present Mescalero Apache Indian Reservation lies within the northern range of the prehistoric Jornada Mogollon culture. The Tularosa Basin yields many Paleo-Indian sites with findings of specific artifacts unique to this period, including fluted Folsom and Clovis projectile points and…
By Aleta J. Lawrence The area surrounding Bear Spring that includes the Sheep Lab Historic District became a major area for Navajo settlement in the eighteenth century. The spring was one of a few dependable water sources in the region. Historical records date use of the Bear Spring area…
