Navajo Canyon Country 1954 Avalon Productions (Patreon)

more at http://quickfound.net/

'Shows Navajo people in their native country and gives a brief description of their way of life today.'

Originally a public domain film from the Library of Congress Prelinger Archives, slightly cropped to remove uneven edges, with the aspect ratio corrected, and one-pass brightness-contrast-color correction & mild video noise reduction applied.

The soundtrack was also processed with volume normalization, noise reduction, clipping reduction, and/or equalization (the resulting sound, though not perfect, is far less noisy than the original).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Navajo_Nation

Wikipedia license: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

The Navajo Nation (Navajo: Naabeehó Bináhásdzo) is an American Indian territory covering about 17,544,500 acres (71,000 km2; 27,413 sq mi), occupying portions of northeastern Arizona, southeastern Utah, and northwestern New Mexico in the United States. This is the largest land area retained by an indigenous tribe in the United States, with a population of 173,667 as of 2010.

By area, the Navajo Nation is larger than ten U.S. states – West Virginia, Maryland, Hawaii, Massachusetts, Vermont, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Connecticut, Delaware and Rhode Island – and is less than one percent shy of being equal to the combined area of the last five (New Hampshire through Rhode Island).

The original territory has expanded several times since the 19th century...

The Navajo people's tradition of governance is rooted in their clans and oral history. The clan system of the Diné is integral to their society, as the rules of behavior found within the system extend to the manner of refined culture that the Navajo people call "to walk in Beauty". The philosophy and clan system extend from before the Spanish colonial occupation of Dinetah, through to the July 25, 1868, Congressional ratification of the Navajo Treaty with President Andrew Johnson, signed by Barboncito, Armijo, and other chiefs and headmen present at Bosque Redondo.

The Navajo people have continued to transform their conceptual understandings of government since it joined the United States by the Treaty of 1868. Social, cultural and political academics continue to debate the nature of the modern Navajo governance and how it has evolved to include the systems and economies of the "western world"...

In the mid-19th century, most Navajo were forced from their lands by the US government, and were marched on the Long Walk to imprisonment in Bosque Redondo. The Treaty of 1868 established the "Navajo Indian Reservation" and the Navajos left Bosque Redondo. The borders were defined as the 37th parallel in the north; the southern border as a line running through Fort Defiance; the eastern border as a line running through Fort Lyon; and in the west as longitude 109°30′...

Clan governance

In the traditional Navajo culture, local leadership was organized around clans, which are matrilineal kinship groups. Children are considered born into the mother's family and gain their social status from her.

The clan leadership have served as a de facto government on the local level of the Navajo Nation...