page_548 < previous page page_548 next page > Page 548 Roman Catholic ritual. Still residing in their ancestral villages, the modern Pueblo communities remain cohesive units retaining much of their rich ceremonialism. Although many residents work outside their communities, others produce traditional patterns of jewelry and ceramics that are much in demand. Among the Pueblo tribes, the Hopis of northern Arizona remain one of the most traditional Native American communities in the continental United States. The Athabascan-speaking people, Apaches and Navajos, compose the other major southwestern group. Unlike the Pueblos they originally were a hunting and gathering people who supplemented their food supply through horticulture. Ranging across the Southwest, the Apaches lived in brush- and hide-covered wickiups. In the seventeenth century, their acquisition of horses increased mobility and probably diminished their already limited reliance upon horticulture. The Navajos, their close relatives, lived in a similar fashion until they acquired horses and sheep in the same period. Adopting a more sedentary mode of life, the Navajos developed transhumant economic patterns: they followed their flocks and herds into the uplands during the summer and removed them to protected valleys during the winter. They erected hexagonal, dirt-covered hogans as residences and began to plant larger fields of beans and corn and small orchards of peach trees. After migrating westward into the canyon and mesa lands of northeastern Arizona, the Navajos grazed their animals on lands radiating out from Canyon de Chelly, a long, Y-shaped, steep-sided canyon near the modern ArizonaNew Mexico border. Prospering in their new environment, the Navajos became successful herdsmen, harvesting wool to be woven into cloth. They also became skilled silversmiths. During the nineteenth century they acquired a very large reservation in their homeland where they still reside, scattered across the desert in small communities or individual dwellings. Clan identification remains important and many Navajos still follow traditional cultural patterns. Most are bilingual (Navajo and English), and in recent decades the question of energy development upon the reservations has stirred considerable interest in Navajo politics. The Navajos are the nation's largest Indian tribe. During the early colonial period California held a larger Indian population than any other region, with the population concentrated along the coast and in the great interior valleys. Characterized by relatively small tribes or political units, the native peoples spoke many tongues and manifested a variety of cultural patterns. Most, however, were hunters, fishers, and gatherers, who often relied heavily upon the seasonal catches of salmon or the gathering of acorns. In the eighteenth century the tribes along the southern coast were forced into the Spanish mission system, and during the latter half of the nineteenth century the interior tribes were almost annihilated by the influx of Anglo-American settlers. During the twentieth century, however, economic opportunities in California attracted large numbers of Indian migrants, with both the Los Angeles basin and the San Francisco Bay region supporting relatively large urban Indian communities. North of California, along the coast of Washington and Oregon, seafaring fishermen, Chinook and Salish, harvested a large variety of marine life and developed one of the most successful hunting and gathering cultures in the world. They lived in large wooden plank structures amid such material abundance that they developed institutional mechanisms, like the potlatch, for the redistribution of wealth. (Potlatches were ceremonies in which individuals gave away much of their wealth in return for the esteem and veneration of their fellow tribespeople.) Skilled woodworkers, they exhibited a fine artistry in intricately carved masks, wooden beams, and totem poles, the last reflecting the clan affiliation of the inhabitants in the extended family residences. These coastal dwellers suffered considerably from diseases introduced during the nineteenth century, but many small reservation communities persisted. Some still rely upon fishing while others have relocated in Seattle, Portland, and other cities in the region. Although Native American cultures and societies underwent many changes after the period of initial European and American contact, most  < previous page page_548 next page >