Pinehill Band of the Ramah Band of the Navajo Nation

Today was a day to learn about the native Americans who had inhabited the land we have been traveling thorough centuries before the white race even thought of sailing out of the sight of land. We started our visit to the Pinehill Band of the Navajo peoples with a luscious lunch of soup, frybread and blue corn mush. Maylee, our docent for our tour of the area, gave us a brief history of the tribe including the war waged by Kit Carson that led to the Long Walk to Fort Sumner in 1820. The tribe was allowed to return to their ancestral lands following the Treaty of 1868 in which the seven clans gave the US government title to the land in return for the promise of health care and social services. Needless to say, the promises made by the government carried little weight in truth. The land the native Americans returned to was covered in lava with little water. The people continued to live there regardless of the harsh conditions.




With the coming of the civil rights movement In the 1960s, tribal leaders, under a program of self-determination, formed a school board Though the board members spoke little or no English and were not literate, they were determined to educate their children on their own land with both native and standard curriculum. One hundred years after the treaty promising them services, as a result of a "sit in" in the office of Senator Joseph Montoya, the nation began to receive support from the federal government for schools and health care. Improved housing and health care are still needed. One third of the community lives without running water or electricity.



Today there are 500 families in the community with 300 children in the school. There is also early childhood and family education available. The education system is hands on with the children learning by doing. The school buildings are patterned after the hogan.

Everything is both male and female in the Navajo culture. Hogans are either male, angular, or female, round. The teaching wall in the west of the newly constructed haystack hogan has glass markers for the four mountains that are the boundaries of the nation.











Following our Mexican dinner at Tinaja Restaurant we enjoyed an evening of cowboy poetry and Navajo singing. Bert and Glenda enjoyed the music so much they had to dance.