Compare And Contrast Navajo And Cherokee

Vivian benne

Hist

Professor

Date

Navajo and Cherokee

The Cherokee Nation is Oklahoma's largest Indian group and the second largest in the United States. The Cherokee Nation are the direct descendants of the tribal government that governed over much of the southeastern United States before European colonization. Navajos were already settled in the “Four Corners” area of the Colorado Plateau before Christopher Columbus ever came to the united states. These two tribes are among the largest indigenous Americans that survived the European colonization of what is now the United States of America. While they may have many modern commonalities, they haven’t always had so much in common. The two tribes however do have many common beliefs in social,

Values rested on the relationship of people and place, family and clan, and community and council; all things tie together and are linked inexplicably through this other worldly force. Traditionally, villages operated as units, who came together for ceremonies and waring. Villages with their seven clans were laid out around a large town or council house with small individual dwellings surrounding these centers. While many people think that the Cherokee lived in teepees, they lived in log cabins. The Cherokee religion differs in their belief of creation of man, and the complexity of their belief system. Numbers are an important aspect of the Cherokee religion, specifically the number four, similarly to the Navajo, and seven, which appears many times in folklore and myths. Seven represents the seven cherokee clans and is considered the height of purity and sacredness. The cherokee also regarded the owl and cougar as sacred animals of wisdom and survival, specifically from the creation story in which the nocturnal owl and cougar were the only animals to survive during the seven nights of creation. The Cherokee believe in a high on omnipotent creator like the Navajo. However, they see many other smaller gifts of god in everyday life that lends their respect to the earth, not through belief that they were created to protect their land. The

The earliest tree-ring date from a Navajo Hogan ruin is 1541 in northern New Mexico, and it is believed they traveled west from there. Archaeological evidence places them in the Grand Canyon area by the late 1600s. Although there is little documentation of the Diné living in the Grand Canyon, their oral history has many references to the canyon and the Colorado River that flows through its inner gorge. The powerful, relentless river is revered as a life force and considered a protector of the Navajo people.

The Diné believe they passed through four worlds before entering this, the Fifth World. Their ancestral lands are bounded by what often are referred to as the four sacred mountains — to the east, Blanca Peak near Alamosa, Colorado; to the south, Mount Taylor near Grants, New Mexico; to the west, the San Francisco Peaks near Flagstaff, Arizona; and to the north, Mount Hesperus in the La Plata Mountains near Durango, Colorado. Likewise, the Navajos have an affinity to four rivers — Rio Grande, Little Colorado, Colorado, and San Juan — that loosely encircle their