ABSTRACT
My objective in this chapter is to describe how Navajo people understand the nature of the child and the process of development, using—as far as possible—their own descriptive categories and logic. The Navajo, who refer to themselves in the Navajo language as Diné, “The People,” are the largest of all Native American tribes and, like other peoples, they differ considerably from each other. Just as there is no single Navajo culture, there is no single, “true” Navajo image of the child; when I write about “the” Navajo image of the child, it is only a convenient metaphor. My version of this image is also necessarily a composite, drawn primarily from discussions that several Navajo and non-Navajo scholars have had, over many years, with Navajo hataalii (“singers” or medicine men). Most Navajos are laymen, having little of the medicine men’s esoteric knowledge. In my experience, however, the behavior toward, and statements about children of ordinary Navajo people are overwhelmingly consistent with the image of the child given by these hataałii.
