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Diné: A History of the Navajos
This comprehensive narrative traces the history of the Navajos from their origins to the beginning of the twenty-first century. Based on extensive archival research, traditional accounts, interviews, historic and contemporary photographs, and firsthand observation, it provides a detailed, up-to-date portrait of the Diné past and present that will be essential for scholars, students, and interested general readers, both Navajo and non-Navajo. As Iverson points out, Navajo identity is rooted in the land bordered by the four sacred mountains. At the same time, the Navajos have always incorporated new elements, new peoples, and new ways of doing things. The author explains how the Diné remember past promises, recall past sacrifices, and continue to build upon past achievements to construct and sustain North America's largest native community. Provided is a concise and provocative analysis of Navajo origins and their relations with the Spanish, with other Indian communities, and with the first Anglo-Americans in the Southwest. Following an insightful account of the traumatic Long Walk era and of key developments following the return from exile at Fort Sumner, the author considers the major themes and events of the twentieth century, including political leadership, livestock reduction, the Code Talkers, schools, health care, government, economic development, the arts, and athletics.
432 pages, Paperback
First published August 28, 2002
18 people are currently reading
272 people want to read
About the author
Peter Iverson
26 books8 followersA scholar of 20th century American Indian history, Peter Iverson was the Regents Professor of History (Emeritus) at Arizona State University. Born in Whittier, California, Iverson received his B.A. in 1967 from Carleton College; his M.A. in 1969, and Ph.D., 1975, from the University of Wisconsin–Madison where he studied with Al Bogue, Robert Berkhofer, Catharine McClellan, and Herbert S. Lewis.
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Displaying 1 - 19 of 19 reviews
March 1, 2013
Okay, so it's kind of unfair for me to claim I read this, when actually I only got around to 3 or 4 chapters... That's because I got the book through my university's interlibrary loan system and now have to return it, so no reflection on the book itself, I only had time to read the chapters most relevant to my PhD. What I can definitely say about the book is that it is well written and very important. Native American peoples are too often considered an anthropological subject - or perhaps even object - whereas Iverson is clearly documenting a history of the Navajo Nation, and in a way which does not prioritise non-Native sourcebases. This demonstrates a way in which Native and non-Native researchers (like Iverson) can collaborate. Oral history is key, and here Native individuals are active in history, not silent or passive. Hopefully I'll manage to get my hands back on a copy soon to finish reading.
August 24, 2021
Iverson sets out to tell the story of the Navajo from the inside out (even though he is not a tribe member, he had worked with them for a long time and his co-writer (credited as photographer but apparently having a bigger role according to the introduction) is Diné (which is what the Navajos call themselves). The history itself works but I am not entirely sure that he managed the goal of showing the tribe as an agent of its own destiny - but then he may not be responsible for it - there were cases where the Diné had to react and could not lead their own life as they wished to... way too many cases.
The book follows the history chronologically - spending the first chapter on the pre-19th century and then following as the decades passed between the four sacred mountains. That first chapter can be a bit maddening - Iverson tries to present all sides of the different accounts for the history of the tribe by citing the relevant authors and elders. He does summarize and adds his own insights but all of those never-ending all-sided quotes, combined with a mythology which is barely touched upon, end up with a jumble of a first chapter. It is dense, it has a lot of information but it proves that sometimes less is more.
Noone knows where at least part of what formed the modern Bulgarians came from - there are probably more theories than historians working on it. I grew up with this argument and into a culture that was trying to learn where they came from so the history can go back, despite the 13+ centuries of known one (or which claimed some past in some periods). And when I think of Native Americans, I think of places and histories as long as the European ones. So the first thing I had to do was to stop trying to find parallels.
Yes, the Diné came from somewhere - there are linguistic and archeological proofs (and there are even more since the book was published) but that's not the history of the Navajo. One day they reached the 4 mountains in the Southwest and that became their home - they know they came from somewhere but where it is does not matter - they are Diné because they are between these mountains. And if someone else would like join them or is useful, they become Diné as well. It is unclear when they moved into the area - but the best guess for now is somewhere between the 12th and the 15th century (cue the different opinions being cited), more likely towards the end of the period. That is at least a few centuries if not millennia than I expected...
Once they are finally settled, the Spanish show up bringing sheep, horses and cattle. Before long, the Diné make sheep part of their identity to the point where there are no Diné if there are no sheep. This is just an early example of the Navajo finding something useful (people or things or actions) and they weave them into being a Navajo. The weaving they are known for was also borrowed, so is the silversmithing and the rodeo. The tribe absorbs the unknown and new and makes it part of itself. Too bad that they did not manage to pull that off with the Anglos coming in.
With USA making its way West, the Navajo end up in the New Mexico territory (before it gets split into the two future states it will birth). Because of its sheer number (and not being that peaceful - they were not beyond just taking what they wanted), the Navajo had somewhat of a reputation for rebellion (the fact that they refused to listen to the white man did not help much). They got kicked out from their lands (the Long Walk may not be as popular in history as the Trail of Tears but it was no less brutal) and relocated to New Mexico, with further plan to send them to the Indian Territory - until somehow the chiefs manage to convince the authorities to let them go home instead and in 1868 the Treaty is signed and the Diné come back home, between their sacred mountains.
What follows is a mix of expected and unexpected - at a time when everyone else loses land, they get more land for their reservation; they become the Cold Talkers of WWII which help the Pacific theater not to collapse (while not being able to vote when they are back home); they get exploited when mineral resources are found. They lose most of their sheep (because of government policies) and they learn to understand education, the need to speak English and modern medicine and to support it - not because they were told to (that part did not work very well) but because it is the Diné way - what is useful, becomes part of the tribe (to the point that now parents send their children to boarding schools so they can get immersed into the culture and learn the language and the tribe sponsored traditional healers' education). They become the Navajo Nation and they remain in the lands which were given to them - between their mountains.
And in all that history, there are the leaders and the chiefs, the men (and rarely women) who shaped the Nation. It is a matrilineal society and yet it is the men who have the political power (complete with corruption and scandals).
It is a very dense text, packing a lot of information and trying to cover a lot of history. And it mostly works. I wish that there were a few more maps in some chapters and the last chapter reads like an advertisement department art history pamphlet but despite that, it mostly succeed in what it set out to do (complete with surprises - did you know that the Navajo had extensive peaches orchards when the Anglos showed up - which were destroyed just because they could be). There is no way to read this history and not wonder how history could have happened if the Spanish and then Americans had found a different way to deal with the populations they found here.
Iverson worked with printed secondary sources but the bulk of the book is based on original research and primary sources. While working with all the letters and other documents, he and his co-writer Monty Roessel, decided to create a second book. I was planning to read the two books in parallel but their structure is different - while I could have made it work, it actually stands on its own - so I will just read it on its own.
The story finishes in 2002 but the history of the Nation continues - and the last 20 years had been years of reevaluation and reconciliation in a lot of areas. I will be looking for a newer account - because some of the actions were just set in motion when the book came out. And one hopes that this history will never be forgotten.
Is this a perfect book? Not really. But it does its job well enough and it makes you think.
The book follows the history chronologically - spending the first chapter on the pre-19th century and then following as the decades passed between the four sacred mountains. That first chapter can be a bit maddening - Iverson tries to present all sides of the different accounts for the history of the tribe by citing the relevant authors and elders. He does summarize and adds his own insights but all of those never-ending all-sided quotes, combined with a mythology which is barely touched upon, end up with a jumble of a first chapter. It is dense, it has a lot of information but it proves that sometimes less is more.
Noone knows where at least part of what formed the modern Bulgarians came from - there are probably more theories than historians working on it. I grew up with this argument and into a culture that was trying to learn where they came from so the history can go back, despite the 13+ centuries of known one (or which claimed some past in some periods). And when I think of Native Americans, I think of places and histories as long as the European ones. So the first thing I had to do was to stop trying to find parallels.
Yes, the Diné came from somewhere - there are linguistic and archeological proofs (and there are even more since the book was published) but that's not the history of the Navajo. One day they reached the 4 mountains in the Southwest and that became their home - they know they came from somewhere but where it is does not matter - they are Diné because they are between these mountains. And if someone else would like join them or is useful, they become Diné as well. It is unclear when they moved into the area - but the best guess for now is somewhere between the 12th and the 15th century (cue the different opinions being cited), more likely towards the end of the period. That is at least a few centuries if not millennia than I expected...
Once they are finally settled, the Spanish show up bringing sheep, horses and cattle. Before long, the Diné make sheep part of their identity to the point where there are no Diné if there are no sheep. This is just an early example of the Navajo finding something useful (people or things or actions) and they weave them into being a Navajo. The weaving they are known for was also borrowed, so is the silversmithing and the rodeo. The tribe absorbs the unknown and new and makes it part of itself. Too bad that they did not manage to pull that off with the Anglos coming in.
With USA making its way West, the Navajo end up in the New Mexico territory (before it gets split into the two future states it will birth). Because of its sheer number (and not being that peaceful - they were not beyond just taking what they wanted), the Navajo had somewhat of a reputation for rebellion (the fact that they refused to listen to the white man did not help much). They got kicked out from their lands (the Long Walk may not be as popular in history as the Trail of Tears but it was no less brutal) and relocated to New Mexico, with further plan to send them to the Indian Territory - until somehow the chiefs manage to convince the authorities to let them go home instead and in 1868 the Treaty is signed and the Diné come back home, between their sacred mountains.
What follows is a mix of expected and unexpected - at a time when everyone else loses land, they get more land for their reservation; they become the Cold Talkers of WWII which help the Pacific theater not to collapse (while not being able to vote when they are back home); they get exploited when mineral resources are found. They lose most of their sheep (because of government policies) and they learn to understand education, the need to speak English and modern medicine and to support it - not because they were told to (that part did not work very well) but because it is the Diné way - what is useful, becomes part of the tribe (to the point that now parents send their children to boarding schools so they can get immersed into the culture and learn the language and the tribe sponsored traditional healers' education). They become the Navajo Nation and they remain in the lands which were given to them - between their mountains.
And in all that history, there are the leaders and the chiefs, the men (and rarely women) who shaped the Nation. It is a matrilineal society and yet it is the men who have the political power (complete with corruption and scandals).
It is a very dense text, packing a lot of information and trying to cover a lot of history. And it mostly works. I wish that there were a few more maps in some chapters and the last chapter reads like an advertisement department art history pamphlet but despite that, it mostly succeed in what it set out to do (complete with surprises - did you know that the Navajo had extensive peaches orchards when the Anglos showed up - which were destroyed just because they could be). There is no way to read this history and not wonder how history could have happened if the Spanish and then Americans had found a different way to deal with the populations they found here.
Iverson worked with printed secondary sources but the bulk of the book is based on original research and primary sources. While working with all the letters and other documents, he and his co-writer Monty Roessel, decided to create a second book. I was planning to read the two books in parallel but their structure is different - while I could have made it work, it actually stands on its own - so I will just read it on its own.
The story finishes in 2002 but the history of the Nation continues - and the last 20 years had been years of reevaluation and reconciliation in a lot of areas. I will be looking for a newer account - because some of the actions were just set in motion when the book came out. And one hopes that this history will never be forgotten.
Is this a perfect book? Not really. But it does its job well enough and it makes you think.
December 30, 2014
I got this book to do some research and ended up reading the entire thing. I haven't taken a Navajo cultural class in years but my passion to keep my culture alive flourishes when I read this book. There are some aspects that are a bit different than I was taught but for the most part, it's all the same.
Read
March 4, 2019The early part of this book left me a bit skeptical about how I'd feel by the end, but it asserted itself nicely as it got into the subject matter that most history books about Native American tribes tend to shortchange or outright avoid, ie. after they "lost" to the United States and were conquered.
The early days of Navajo history are evidently a bit lacking on hard fact regarding their origins, when they arrived in what became their home region in the Southwest, etc. Initially (and not knowing much about Navajo history) I had really hoped for more extensive sections about pre-US history, so that was an initial disappointment for me, if one that only had so much that could be done about it. With so little for him to report on, I found myself not overly caring for author Peter Iverson's writing style/voice. It didn't help that he seemed to expect us to know about things like "the revolt of 1680", made clear by repeated references, which most of us are unlikely to know about, and which he half dismisses himself after a while. He also leaves out frustrating amounts of background about the tribe's relations with nearby other tribes.
Thankfully, the Navajo weathered the United States' storm better than many of the other tribes that once populated the country, and it was really only after they managed to return to their home base from their forced relocation in the 1860s that this book started to pick up. The real value of Diné: A History of the Navajos is learning about the slow, ongoing process the tribe (which has always prided itself on adaptability) has spent the last 150 years undertaking to carve out a stable place for itself in the modern world. Historical figures like Chee Dodge made for pretty fascinating reading, and by the back end of the book I found myself being far enough immersed in the Diné world to start taking strong opinions about their various leaders and internal conflicts.
The book is definitely on the dry side throughout, but not to the point of being unreadable...maybe just a fairly slow read. Overall I feel like I know a whole new small world of history within my country which was my goal going in, even if I had no idea what form that would take.
The early days of Navajo history are evidently a bit lacking on hard fact regarding their origins, when they arrived in what became their home region in the Southwest, etc. Initially (and not knowing much about Navajo history) I had really hoped for more extensive sections about pre-US history, so that was an initial disappointment for me, if one that only had so much that could be done about it. With so little for him to report on, I found myself not overly caring for author Peter Iverson's writing style/voice. It didn't help that he seemed to expect us to know about things like "the revolt of 1680", made clear by repeated references, which most of us are unlikely to know about, and which he half dismisses himself after a while. He also leaves out frustrating amounts of background about the tribe's relations with nearby other tribes.
Thankfully, the Navajo weathered the United States' storm better than many of the other tribes that once populated the country, and it was really only after they managed to return to their home base from their forced relocation in the 1860s that this book started to pick up. The real value of Diné: A History of the Navajos is learning about the slow, ongoing process the tribe (which has always prided itself on adaptability) has spent the last 150 years undertaking to carve out a stable place for itself in the modern world. Historical figures like Chee Dodge made for pretty fascinating reading, and by the back end of the book I found myself being far enough immersed in the Diné world to start taking strong opinions about their various leaders and internal conflicts.
The book is definitely on the dry side throughout, but not to the point of being unreadable...maybe just a fairly slow read. Overall I feel like I know a whole new small world of history within my country which was my goal going in, even if I had no idea what form that would take.
September 12, 2024
Deep and wide. Not a casual read but worth the effort. I may have skimmed a lot of the names and dates of a very thorough, important book. As they say, history is always written by the winners, so our real understanding of indigenous people has been lacking. This is an important contribution to telling the fuller American story.
January 22, 2021
A very, very good book! Thoroughly researched and well written. I appreciated the opportunity to expand my knowledge and understanding of the Dine people of whom I have always been fond.
March 5, 2022
"The Navajos have always brought in new people, new ideas, and new elements and, over time, made them Navajo." (3)
October 19, 2022
Important, critical, informative, and fascinating history. This was well written and a fantastic perspective on Navajo history. I'd love to read this quality history on every single tribe.
November 30, 2022
Well written. It’s obvious the author really cares about the subject. Conversational in tone, but still very informative.
June 24, 2023
An important study on an often overlooked fragment of American history that does not cast the American government as heroes and refuses to let an ancient culture be erased.
May 9, 2019
Seems like people who give low ratings because this book doesn’t extensively cover precontact history of Diné haven’t really read this book. If they did, they would realize that because of US attempts at cultural annihilation of Diné through forced displacement and boarding schools, many present-day Diné do not have access to their own traditional knowledge and history. Given this context, for a settler to expect Diné precontact history and knowledge handed to them on a silver plater is not only presumptuously ignorant but reeks of Western-gaze, expecting/wanting only romanticized stories of the “noble savage”, but all too willing to ignore the ugly parts of this history and the sovereignty issues that present-day Diné face.
If you instead would like a cogent account of the impressive resiliency and adaptiveness of Diné through the violence and trauma that has been wrought on them, and all that has happened to influence the lives of present-day Diné, then read this book.
If you instead would like a cogent account of the impressive resiliency and adaptiveness of Diné through the violence and trauma that has been wrought on them, and all that has happened to influence the lives of present-day Diné, then read this book.
December 6, 2014
The Dine are an ancient people, and I was looking forward to learning a bit of their long history and culture. I was disappointed to discover that only about 15 of 400 pages cover history prior to the Europeans showing up. And that first chapter on their long history feels incomplete and rushed. The rest of the book gives a quite detailed but dry recounting of their recent history.
December 10, 2014
The Dine are an ancient people, and I was looking forward to learning a bit of their long history and culture. I was disappointed to discover that only about 15 of 400 pages cover history prior to the Europeans showing up. And that first chapter on their long history feels incomplete and rushed. The rest of the book gives a quite detailed but dry recounting of their recent history.
May 7, 2014
I checked out this book to look at the Navajo history to the 1900's (the Long Walk). The history is rich and the author did extensive research on the events. This is a great, great book. Might get back to the rest of the book at a later date.
March 9, 2007
Excellent overview of 20th Century Navajo History. Iverson is masterful at balancing objective scholarship with a genuine emotional attachment to his subject matter.
May 6, 2008
A fairly blanced and comprehensive history.
November 12, 2009
Iverson clearly cares about his subject and he delivers a thorough history. Unfortunately, the book sometimes bogs down in clunky language and rarely develops much storytelling momentum.
January 4, 2015
An interesting history that is very compelling in places. A good read
May 10, 2010
One of the best history of the Navajo I've found.
Displaying 1 - 19 of 19 reviews