ving, usually the same thing.
It is doubtful whether there are more than a few dozens of Navaho living
west of the mountains who know anything of the country to the east, and
vice versa. This ignorance of what we may term the immediate vicinity of
a place is experienced by every traveler who has occasion to make a
long journey over the reservation and employs a guide. But he discovers
it only by personal experience, for the guide will seldom admit his
ignorance and travels on, depending on meeting other Indians living
in that vicinity who will give him the required local knowledge. This
peculiar trait illustrates the extremely restricted area within which
each "nomad" family lives.

Now and then one may meet a family moving, for such movements are quite
common. Usually each family has at least two locations--not definite
places, but regions--and they move from one to the other as the
necessity arises. In such cases they take everything with them,
including flocks of sheep and goats and herds of ponies and cattle, if
they possess any. The _qasci[ng]_, as the head of the family is called,
drives the ponies and cattle, the former a degenerate lot of little
beasts not much larger than an ass, but capable of carrying a man in
an emergency 100 miles in a day. He carries his arms, for the coyotes
trouble the sheep at night, two or three blankets, and a buckskin on
his saddle, but nothing more. It is his special duty to keep the ponies
moving and in the trail. Following him comes a flock of sheep and goats,
bleating and nibbling at the bushes and grass as they slowly trot along,
urged by the dust-begrimed squaw and her children. Several of the more
tractable ponies carry packs of household effects stuffed into buckskin
and cotton bags or wrapped in blankets, a little corn for food, the rude
blanket loom of the woman, baskets, and wicker bottles, and perhaps a
scion of the house, too young to walk, perched on top of all. Such a
caravan is always accompanied by several dogs--curs of unknown breed,
but invaluable aids to the women and children in herding the flocks.

Under the Navaho system descent is in the female line. The children
belong to the mother, and likewise practically all property except
horses and cattle. Sheep and goats belong exclusively to her, and the
head of the family can not sell a sheep to a passing traveler without
first obtaining the consent and approval of his wife. Hence in such a
movement as that sketche