Navajo Architecture after 1500 AD
When people met the first Spanish explorers in the 1500's
AD, most Navajo people were living in hogans.
By trading with the Spanish settlers in the 1500's and 1600's AD, Navajo
people were able to improve their hogans.
First people got sheep from the Spanish settlers, and they began to sleep on sheepskins instead of on woven grass mats. Then they learned how to spin and weave the sheep's wool into blankets so they could have warm wool blankets. And they traded with the Spanish people to get steel tools so people could cut bigger logs and build bigger hogans than they had had before.
First people got sheep from the Spanish settlers, and they began to sleep on sheepskins instead of on woven grass mats. Then they learned how to spin and weave the sheep's wool into blankets so they could have warm wool blankets. And they traded with the Spanish people to get steel tools so people could cut bigger logs and build bigger hogans than they had had before.
Can you see the sheepskins? How about the television? (1973)
In these bigger hogans, people sometimes put furniture,
like beds and tables, and sometimes they made windows.
Navajo hogan with a stove (1946)
When people in North America began to have iron
stoves in their houses, in the 1800's, many Navajo people also put stoves
in their houses.
By the 1900's, some Navajo people began to live in
plank houses like people of European descent. But even those who live in
plank houses may still have a hogan nearby for religious ceremonies or
for sick people.
