Click2Flicks - Wind Talkers, The Story Behind the Movie, Navajo Life, Chapter 3

<body link="0000ff" alink="ff0000" vlink="000000" bgcolor=000033> <table width="100%" bgcolor=000033> <tr> <td align=center valign=top> <table width=90% bgcolor=ffffff> <tr> <td align=center valign=top> <tr> <td> <div align=center><p><b><font face="arial, helvetica" size=5 color=000000><b><i>WINDTALKERS</i></p> <p><font size="4">CHAPTER 3 - NAVAJO LIFE</b></font></p> </div>  <center> <table width="90%"> <tr> <td align="left" valign="top"> <div align="justify"> <p><font face="arial, helvetica" color="000000" size="3">Back on their ancestral homelands, the Navajo people continued their traditional way of life. When America joined World War I, many Navajos fought for their country. When they returned to the reservation, most resumed their normal lives. It was a lifestyle largely unknown by other Americans:</p><ul> <li>Navajo <a href="http://media.nara.gov/media/images/7/30/07-2991a.gif" target="_blank"><b>sheep owners</b></a>, especially in the southern portions of the reservation, lived in "hogans." Most families had <a href="http://media.nara.gov/media/images/7/30/07-2983a.gif" target="_blank"><b>several</b></a>, including a summer and a winter hogan, allowing them to follow their grazing sheep.</li><br><br> <li>The Navajo hogan <a href="http://media.nara.gov/media/images/7/30/07-2985a.gif" target="_blank"><b>evolved</b></a> during the years from <a href="http://www3.nau.edu/cline/imagedisplay.cfm?control_num=1195" target="_blank"><b>piles</b></a> of <a href="http://www3.nau.edu/cline/imagedisplay.cfm?control_num=1173" target="_blank"><b>dirt</b></a> and pieces of <a href="http://media.nara.gov/media/images/43/7/43-0657a.gif" target="_blank"><b>wood</b></a>, providing <a href="http://www3.nau.edu/cline/imagedisplay.cfm?control_num=1180" target="_blank"><b>shelter</b></a>, to the hogan of the 1930s, with its log walls and <a href="http://www3.nau.edu/cline/imagedisplay.cfm?control_num=1202" target="_blank"><b>dirt roof</b></a>. By the late 1930s, many Navajo were also <a href="http://media.nara.gov/media/images/43/8/43-0718a.gif" target="_blank"><b>living in</b></a> log and stone houses.</li><br><br> <li>In ancient times people also constructed <a href="http://www3.nau.edu/cline/imagedisplay.cfm?control_num=1163" target="_blank"><b>houses</b></a> in <a href="http://www3.nau.edu/cline/imagedisplay.cfm?control_num=1401" target="_blank"><b>or</b></a> near <a href="http://www3.nau.edu/cline/imagedisplay.cfm?control_num=1305" target="_blank"><b>shallow</b></a> <a href="http://www3.nau.edu/cline/imagedisplay.cfm?control_num=1187" target="_blank"><b>caves</b></a> on Navajo land. One such four-story tower house, <a href="http://media.nara.gov/media/images/6/7/06-0647a.gif" target="_blank"><b>tower house</b></a>, built about 800 years ago, still exists in a Navajo Canyon shallow cave.</li><br><br> <li>In the mid-1930s, Navajo sheep fed on <a href="http://media.nara.gov/media/images/7/30/07-2932a.gif" target="_blank"><b>over-grazed</b></a> land.</li><br><br> <li>Navajo farms did not have irrigation systems. People had to <a href="http://media.nara.gov/media/images/7/30/07-2935a.gif" target="_blank"><b>depend</b></a> on flood waters.</li><br><br> <li>By 1937, however, <a href="http://media.nara.gov/media/images/7/30/07-2957a.gif" target="_blank"><b>deep wells</b></a> were providing grazing range in previously unusable areas.</li><br><br> <li>Most of the farms had <a href="http://media.nara.gov/media/images/7/30/07-2936a.gif" target="_blank"><b>primitive fencing</b></a> which was being replaced by 1936.</li></ul> <p align="justify">The Navajo people have a deep respect for their ancestors and for their families. America’s national archives give outsiders an opportunity to examine Navajo family life in the decades before America’s involvement in World War II.</p> </div> <p align="center"><font face="arial, helvetica" size="2"><a href="wind_talkers_ch2.htm">GO TO LAST CHAPTER</a>     <a href="wind_talkers_ch1.htm">BACK TO FIRST CHAPTER  </a>   <a href="wind_talkers_ch4.htm">GO TO NEXT CHAPTER</a></p><br> </a> </td> </tr> </table>  </td> </tr> </table>  </td> </tr> </table> </body>