Navajo

Appearance
Navajo is a pure white steed with a dark blue mane and tail. She wears feathers in her hair, a leather band around one foreleg, a turquoise beaded necklace with hanging wheels, and an ornately beaded leather saddle.

The Name Game
The tribe this steed is based on are located in The Four Corners region of the American southwest. Culturally related to the Tlingit in the north, and the Apache in the southwest. The Navajos migrated south with their brethren, the Apaches, sometime in the 14th Century. Originally they were from the Pacific Northwest, and their language, Athabasca, is still spoken by the Tlingit tribe in Alaska. They took up residence in vacant lands abandoned by the cliff-dwelling Anasazi civilization.

The Navajo built permanent dwellings called hogans, which also have a religious significance. They enjoyed longstanding friendly relationships with the Pueblo people. Traditional Navajos planted crops and raised livestock. Their families were matrilineal and married men went to live with the wife’s family.

Today the Navajo Reservation is by far the largest in the U.S., an area of 24,000 square miles (62,400 square kilometers) covering parts of Arizona, New Mexico and Utah. With a population approaching 300,000 persons, this is also the largest tribe in U.S. Navajos have developed an extremely effective and accomplished tribal government, which has successfully negotiated land leases, mineral rights leases and occasional conflicts with the federal government. Navajos are renowned for their colorful and artful textiles and silver and turquoise jewelry.

Snake
Navajo shares a special connection with the snake.

Inspirational Message
"You can choose to change what you think, do, or want."