Culture and Ecology of Chaco Canyon and the San Juan Basin

Historic Period Studies 327them elsewhere. Navajo herders who had fewer animalswere unable to use the land because they wouldincur trespass violations and repercussions frombreaking the law. Kelley also documented how a fallin livestock prices after 1940 and the forced purchaseof railroad land by Sargent between 1940 and 1944 ledto the downsizing of herds. Continued decreases inthe profitability of livestock eventually led to the saleof the Sargent Ranch in 1958 to the Navajo Nation,which had earned income through the sale of mineralleases on their lands. The land once occupied byNavajo was thereby returned to Navajo use.K. Kelley indicated how sites attributed to largescaleNavajo stock owners, small-scale Navajo stockowners, shepherds who worked for Ed Sargent, andoil-drilling crews exhibited different manifestations inthe archaeological record. These differences wereevident in the number of sites recorded, complexes offeatures in each site type, artifact assemblages, andspatial distribution through time. Differences weretied to land-ownership policies; the distribution ofwater rights; fluctuations in the wool, livestock, andoil markets; differences in stock-raising practices; andthe technology used in oil drilling and production.Kelley'S contribution complements Brugge's researchfrom the standpoint of detailed ethnohistories of localland users. Her evaluation of the broader economicfactors affecting all users of the area adds the perspectivethat Brugge had hoped to attain.A second study carried out by Rosalie Fanale(1982), a student at George Washington Universitywho worked in the NPS Remote Sensing Division,evaluated Navajo rangeland management-its changesthrough time, and how these changes affected Navajocultural practices. She was concerned with socialpressures that affected the productivity of semiaridlands and with explaining processes of change in termsof the relationship of pastoral people to exogenousgovernments. Four basic questions were: 1) Did theNavajo have an indigenous land management system?2) Were there changes in Navajo land use in the latenineteenth and twentieth centuries? 3) To what extentis environmental degradation a result of an exogenousconstraint; e.g., government programs and laws? 4)To what extent are other explanations of environmentaldegradation appropriate?Maps prepared from LANDSAT images wereuseful before and during interviews with informants todetermine which areas had been used prior to 1930slaws and other governmental restrictions. Interviewswith older Navajo provided a late-1800s foundationfor understanding range management practices.The indigenous Navajo land management systemwas seen as an adaptation to seasonal, as well asyearly, fluctuations in the environment. Not only didthe Navajo practice daily, seasonal, and yearly rangerotation, but also the principles of visiting and invitingrelatives to share an area during good environmentalconditions that provided a buffer to the landscape intimes of stress prescribed this behavior. Longdistancemobility was considered normal and allowedpeople to have close contacts. Proper behavior amongkin and clan systems was important. The concept ofharmony was expressed through love and friendship,which were the basis of the proper way of life. Fanaleconcluded that traditional Navajo land use was definedby regulating principles as follows:• Land resources should be respected, and whenthey are plentiful, they should be shared amongrelatives living nearby or farther away.• Rather than depleting a range, people shouldtemporarily move away with their animals andvisit relatives, thereby letting the land rest.• Rather than specific preferences for moves or aspecific order of preference (e.g., nearer relativespreferred over more distant), there is awide choice of destinations (as well as the timingand duration of each move) that encompasses thebroad network of kin; the details of each movedepend on situational and contextual factors,especially history of family contacts andenvironmental conditions.• Which way it goes-moving away or invitingothers in-depends on environmental conditions,which are themselves highly variable from yearto year and from place to place (Fanale1982: 142-143).