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Show 102 VIII. BILAGAANA NINAAd^V the heart of Navajoland. A small group of army volunteers followed Sandoval as far as Ojo del Oso, or Bear Springs. Here they met some of the Navajos' greatest leaders, including the aged and sick Narbona. Led by this great man, the Navajo headmen agreed to come to Santa Fe to make a treaty. At Ojo del Oso, the soldiers saw a large group of Navajos for the first time. The Americans were amazed. One soldier said that they were an "enlightened" tribe. Many soldiers even took to wearing Navajo clothes. Others were impressed by the Navajos' rich culture. They watched the People display their skilled horsemanship, throw lances at rings, gamble with dice, and weave blankets. The equal status and freedom of Navajo women also startled the Americans, who were used to thinking of their own wives as less capable than men. While these troops went back to Cebolleta, another army group marched into the northern portion of Navajoland. Starting up the Rio Chama from Abiquiu, they crossed over to the San Juan River and followed it west for more than forty miles. They noted that the valley of the San Juan was filled with Navajos watering their horses and sheep. From the river, the troops turned southeast, crossed the Tunicha Mountains, and passed within a few miles of the Canyon de Chelly. This they thought was a Navajo fortress. After marching for a month, the troops reached Ojo del Oso. The Navajos had not come to Santa Fe as agreed. They had heard that the army and New Mexicans planned to kill them. So Colonel Doniphan led his troops from Cebolleta back to Ojo del Oso, where they joined the soldiers from the north. When the Navajos saw the army approach in peace, they were willing to make a treaty. Still they could not understand why the soldiers were so upset over Navajo-New Mexican warfare. An impressive young headman, Zarcillas Largo, replied to Doniphan's request for a treaty: Americans! You have a strange cause of war against the Navajos. We have waged war against the New Mexicans for several years. We have plundered their villages and killed many of their people, and made many prisoners. We had just cause for all this. You have lately commenced a war against the same people. . . . You have therefore conquered them, the very thing we have been attempting to do for so many years. |