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Show i9oo] SOUTHWESTERN INDIANS Athapascan element, strains of Zunian and other pueblo stocks as well as of Shoshonean and Yuman. The physical appearance of the people seems to corroborate this tradition, for it is impossible to describe a purely Navajo type. All varieties of face and figure appear, from the tall stature and prominent features of the Indians of the plains to the short body and less strongly marked lineaments of the pueblo type. 1 The country occupied by the Navajo lies in northern Arizona and southern Utah, with the adjacent parts of Colorado and New Mexico; it is arid and in large measure desert, and consists principally of a lofty table- land, with here and there mountain- ranges or volcanic cones, broken in places by broad, sandy valleys or deep and rugged canons. Above six to seven thousand feet the uplands and mountains are covered with low forests, while during the rainy season a rich but ephemeral vegetable growth covers the mesas; but the rainfall is too scanty to allow of agriculture, except along the few permanent streams. The country is, nevertheless, fairly well adapted to the raising of sheep and goats, of which every family now possesses a flock, and these form the chief food supply of the Navajo; though as those animals are not native to America, these people could not have been shepherds for very many centuries. The Navajo are now, in comparison with Indians generally, a prosperous and wealthy people, but 1 Matthews, Navaho Legends, 9. VOL. 11.- ia |