Dreaming of Sheep in Navajo Country  By Marsha Weisiger  University of Washington Press, 2009

Dreaming of Sheep in Navajo Country  Foreword: Sheep Are Good to Think With  Preface  Prologue: A View from Sheep Springs  FAULT LINES:  Counting Sheep  Range Wars

Dreaming of Sheep in Navajo Country  BEDROCK  With Our Sheep We Were Created  A Woman’s Place

Dreaming of Sheep in Navajo Country  TERRA FIRMA  Herding Sheep  Hoofed Locusts

Climate Change

Dreaming of Sheep in Navajo Country  EROSION  Mourning Livestock  Drawing Lines on a Map  Making Memories

Time Line for Stock Reduction (Pre-Collier) 1920s – horses slaughtered due to dourine infection – stock reduction is first proposed by BIA to check erosion

Time Line for Stock Reduction (Phase 1)  1933 – John Collier appointed commissioner of Indian Affairs  – first stock reduction (voluntary)

Time Line for Stock Reduction (Phase 2) 1934 – goat reduction 1935 – Indian Reorganization Act rejected by voters – protests against stock reduction grow – Southwestern Range and Sheep Breeding Laboratory bred hybrid churra sheep (crossed with Corriedales and Romneys)

Grazing Regulations  1937 – special grazing regulations issued for Navajo reservation  1937 – sheep dipping count becomes basis for grazing permits  1938 – grazing permits issued  1939 – special grazing regulations issued for Checkerboard, under the Taylor Grazing Act

Time Line for Stock Reduction (Phase 3)  – horse reduction and sheep reduction  – BIA prosecutes 19 cases against people who refuse to reduce numbers of horses  1941 – grazing regulations on reservation relaxed, with “special grazing permits” for duration of World War II  1943 – Navajo Tribal Council ends the stock reduction program

Time Line for Stock Reduction (Modern Phase)  1947 – BIA allows women to hold grazing permits in their own name  – severe drought on Navajo Reservation  1956-present – Navajo Nation Council administers grazing regulations

Things to Consider  Stock reduction affected families differently, depending on how much they depended on livestock and where they lived. Some were affected badly, and some were not directly affected as much.  Existing oral histories cover only a few areas of the Navajo Nation. More oral histories will give us a richer, more nuanced, more complicated understanding of this era.

Oral Histories

 Roessel, Ruth, and Broderick H. Johnson, eds. Navajo Livestock Reduction: A National Disgrace. Chinle, Ariz.: Navajo Community College Press,  Sundberg, Dean, and Fern Charley, eds. Navajo Stock Reduction Interviews. Microfilm. Oral History Program, California State University, Fullerton.  Moon, Samuel. Tall Sheep: Harry Goulding, Monument Valley Trader. University of Oklahoma Press,  Hubbell Trading Post Oral History Files. Hubbell Trading Post National Monument. Ganado, Ariz. (Mainly about weavers.)  Navajo Oral Histories. American Indian Oral History Transcriptions. Microfilm. Center for Southwest Research. Zimmerman Library. University of New Mexico. Albuquerque. (Not useful for livestock reduction.)

Director, Public History Program New Mexico State University After 1/15/11: Department of History University of Oregon Dr. Marsha Weisiger