After reviewing Reclaiming Diné History (which cites this work, at that time was in the process of publication) I picked this book to read. The federal government's livestock reduction program on the Navajo Reservation during the 1930s stands as one of the most significant events in Diné (Navajo) history during the twentieth century. In the midst of the Great Depression federal officials hoped to stop overgrazing on Navajo lands in the Southwest and to prevent another environmental disaster like the Dust Bowl. However, the livestock reduction program proved to be a disaster of its own. Historian Marsha Weisger presents a new interpretation of Navajo pastoralism and why the livestock reduction of the 1930s failed. By the early 1700s the Navajo began to herd small flocks of sheep after the Spanish introduced these animals and other domesticated livestock to the Southwest. However, the Navajo considered sheep as an integral part to their identity going back to their very beginnings. In the creation story Changing Woman gave life to Diné and their livestock by forming people of the first four clans from her own skin and with another piece of skin created horses, sheep, and goats. These animals were the most important gifts to the Navajo, offering subsistence, a medium of exchange, and a spiritual identity for the Diné. As one Navajo man stated in the 1950s in the program's aftermath: "With our sheep we were created." However, New Deal officials (particularly Bureau of Indian Affairs Commissioner John Collier) made a grave mistake by ignoring the cultural relationship of sheep to the Navajo. They believed that the range had been overgrazed and overstocked and relied on conservation, which treated ecological problems facing the reservation as a mathematical equation solved in universal terms. After all, the New Deal had rescued the southern plains from the Dust Bowl by introducing new farming methods, but government agents did not face a cultural divide there. Several advisers warned Collier against harsh measures to reduce livestock and prevent erosion, but he went ahead with his plan. Consequently, many Navajos were outraged at Collier and the New Deal, having been forced to slaughter hundreds of thousands of sheep. he Navajo believed as a result that the rain disappeared. Conservationists were correct that environmental damage had been done to the range (partially due to encroachment by Anglo and Hispanic ranchers), but their faith in science blinded them from utilizing Diné knowledge of vegetation and soil and realizing the cultural implications of stock reduction. To this day, Collier's heavy-handed approach has left the Navajo with a deep distrust of the federal government. One of this book's most intriguing parts is how gender and ecology are intertwined. Navajo women owned most of the sheep herds and almost all of the goat population. When a woman married, she typically brought her husband to live with her and her hogan was situated near those of her mother and married sisters. Women stood at the center of Diné life, including spiritual beliefs, kinship, and residence patterns. Most importantly, Navajo women were important to economic production, especially weaving, producing rugs for sale in commercial markets. Women's economic status increased through weaving as they traded rugs at trading posts for food, coffee, clothing, fabric, and other supplies. Livestock reduction had a direct impact on women's status in Navajo society because dwindling flocks reduced women's claims to land. After World War II (in which many Navajo men and women served with distinction in the armed forces, including the Code Talkers) men increased their power in Diné households as wage earners in coal or uranium mines and other jobs. However, according to Weisiger, women still remained influential in Navajo society. I believe that Dreaming of Sheep in Navajo Country is only one of a few environmental history books to incorporate gender and ecology together. Dreaming of Sheep in Navajo Country is an extension of Jennifer Nez Denetdale's argument in Reclaiming Diné History that our views of Navajo history and culture have been mainly shaped by whites and their belief system. When conservationists like John Collier set out to plan stock reduction in the 1930s they were driven by Western science, not Navajo cultural considerations. True, the Navajo lands suffered from years of environmental degradation as more people and animals were hemmed in by non-Indian ranchers, but slaughtering livestock in mass numbers without recognizing the importance of sheep in Diné society was not the answer. Weisiger's book illustrates how white American and Native American understandings of nature clashed as the federal government imposed its values on the Navajos with disastrous effects. Weisiger, Marsha L. Dreaming of Sheep in Navajo Country. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2009.
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CategoriesAuthorTom Schmidt lives in Prescott Valley, AZ. Archives
October 2018
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October 2018
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