ANST-601 Lessons

The students enter the Ancient Studies classroom to find it looking rather different from what they have seen before. All of the desks have been moved to the sides of the room and an enormous blanket is now covering the floor. 

The professor beckons the students to join her in sitting on the blanket, which is red, black, white and grey, and features strong, geometric patterns. Once everyone is settled, the professor smiles and begins her lesson.

Welcome, once again, to Ancient Studies! Today we will be discussing the Navajo, or the Diné, as they call themselves. 

The Navajo are one of the largest tribes of native people that still exist in North America. They are part of a larger linguistic group of native people with Athabaskan heritage. The Athabaskan people are actually native to parts of Canada and the state of Alaska in the United States. Around 1400 CE, some of these people decided to leave their home territory and journey south, eventually ending up in what is now modern day Arizona, Utah, Colorado, and New Mexico in the United States.

Upon arrival in this territory, the Navajo encountered another group of people named the Pueblo, who came to have a great influence on their artistic creations, such as weaving, pottery and silversmithing.  

Before meeting the Pueblo people, the Navajo society was based on the hunter-gatherer lifestyle, or a lifestyle that centers around hunting, fishing, or foraging in the wild in order to survive. Their exposure to the Pueblo way of life changed this lifestyle into a predominantly agriculture based society, which ended their nomadic tendencies.

One aspect of their society that did not change was their matrilineal structure. That is, the women owned the land and the livestock. When a couple were married, the husband left his clan and became part of his wife’s clan. While there were numerous clans within the Navajo society, there was little in-fighting, and it was these marriages that kept the whole society united. There were no marriages within the same clan. When you dated and were married, you could only do so with someone who was not from your clan, which included your mother’s clan, your father’s original clan, and the original clans of any of your four grandparents. Your marriage assured another connection within the Navajo people that was not easily broken.

Alas, like the vast majority of native civilizations in the Americas, the Navajo were decimated by the arrival and disbursement of the Europeans, beginning in the 1600s CE. They joined forces with the neighbouring Pueblo and Apache peoples, however, ultimately, their people were defeated.

I will not go into great detail on the atrocities that befell the Navajo and other native peoples of that region as it breaks my heart. Suffice to say that they were forced to live in certain areas, often walking horrible distances on foot to get there, resulting in more deaths. They were also forced to conform to the standards of the European immigrants in terms of schooling and culture.

Much of this situation remains today. While the people are not enslaved or forced into purely modern American norms, there are still restrictions upon them. The Navajo have been allocated a Reserve area that includes similarly located territory to that on which they lived historically, and are now referred to as the Navajo Nation.

There is a small silver lining in all of this sadness. The Navajo people historically embraced magic as practiced by their Medicine Men, and still do. Because of this belief, a small Navajo wizarding community still exists within the borders of the Navajo Nation.

Navajo Magic

You may have noticed that the history I have provided for you on the Navajo has been much less than that which I have provided for other cultures in this class. The reason for this is twofold: firstly, the Navajo people have only existed as a separate identity for about 200 years, as opposed to others we have studied that were independent for multiple hundreds or even thousands of years. Secondly, much of their history - where they went, what they believed, how they treated each other and the world around them - was based on magic.

Let’s return to the migration of the Navajo from Canada. Why would a people so intricately connected to each other migrate so far away from the rest of their people? What would have drawn them to leave? What made them decide to stay once they reached a certain location?  To answer these questions, we need to think like an anthropologist. We need to look at what was similar in the areas these people lived that would make them feel like they were home.

Now, I have not yet given you enough information to solve this riddle on your own. You would also need to know that the Navajo people and their Athabaskan relatives were very much involved with animals - both magical and otherwise. You would also need to know about the one magical creature that is present in both the Navajo and related Athabaskan cultures: the thunderbird.

Magianthropologists believe that the thunderbird is the primary reason for the relocation of Athabaskans that gave rise to the Navajo people. As I mentioned before, these people had a connection to creatures both magical and otherwise. Much of their mythology is based upon animals (which you can learn more about in Mythology), as is their clan structure. 

In fact, the Athabaskans were fascinated with magical creatures. While thunderbirds did not live within the Athabaskan homeland per se, they did live within the homelands of their nearest neighbours on the west coast of modern-day Canada. Magianthropologists speculate that the Athabaskans must have encountered either tales of the thunderbird or perhaps an actual thunderbird in their interactions with their neighbours and found them fascinating; so fascinating as to gather a large group of their people to try to find these creatures to learn more. It would be fair to say that a large part of the wizarding contingent of this group were the magizoologists of their people.

However they originally encountered the thunderbird, this group of people decided they needed to know more about these creatures. Perhaps it was simply a need to understand the world around them, or perhaps the thunderbird was seen as a possible addition to one of their sacred animals. Either way, the group that became the Navajo followed tales of these creatures, told by other native peoples they encountered, down the west coast of the continent, and then towards the east, eventually arriving in modern-day Arizona.

Upon their arrival in this rather arid area, the people did find what they were looking for: the largest concentration of thunderbirds on the planet. They continued to study these creatures and made immeasurable contributions to our knowledge of these creatures.. From their dietary needs to the manner in which they create great storms, the Navajo tried to learn every nuance of thunderbirds. To this day, the small wizarding community within the Navajo Nation continues to both study and protect these fascinating animals from Muggle discovery.

Magic use by the Navajo people was certainly influenced by their fascination and relationship with magical creatures, but that was only a small part of how magic was woven into their culture. The wizards who openly practiced in the Navajo culture were called the medicine men. They were great users of magic, and focussed primarily on healing. In the Navajo culture, healing rituals were performed that invoked different sacred animals (quite often the eagle), directions, and even colours. Within these ceremonies were actual healing charms that would at least aid if not completely heal the person in question.

Another aspect of the Navajo magical knowledge is that they were fully aware of the presence of dark wizards. Some of their stories include references to people who could curse the minds and bodies of innocent people, and that these maladies required the intervention of the medicine man to heal them. There is no clear information on whether these dark wizards were part of the Navajo population or whether they were from other native cultures. Most likely, there were cases of both.

Conclusion

And that is all the time we have for today’s topic. If you wish to learn more about the Navajo and how creatures such as the eagle and the thunderbird are woven into their culture, please consider taking Mythology. Next class we will travel to the east coast of Canada and discuss the Mi’kmaq people. Until then, you will have a short essay and a quiz as homework.

One final note: we are edging ever closer to the end of Year Six, and with that, your final. I would highly suggest that you begin your revisions of the previous lessons of Ancient Studies as soon as possible. Good luck!

Image credits here and here
Original lesson written by Professor Liria Morgan