Navajo Indians

Wolf, C.B. Kwashiorkor on the Navajo Indian reservation. A discussion of the disease as seen throughout the world and a report of three cases in Navajo children. Henry Ford Hosp. med. Bull. 9, 566-571 (1961) Follis, R., Jr. Deficiency disease, p. 315. Springfield, Illinois Charles C. Thomas Publisher 1958... 

The effects of some poisonous plants includes hallucinations. Through the ages men have used these plants for religious rites and to escape from everyday ills. The Aztecs revered a mushroom, Psilocybe mexicana, for its hallucinogenic properties, while the priests of India deified a toadstool. Amanita muscaria, for its intoxicating juices. Here in the United States, the Navajo Indians and other tribes employed the peyote cactus, Lophophora williamsii, to send users into a euphoric state. 

The Navajo Indian Irrigation Project in New Mexico employs three miles of the world s largest diameter (ITVi ft inside) prestressed concrete pipe. Each 20 ft section of pipe weighs 140 tons and contains 1IV2 miles of prestressing wire. The outside diameter of the pipe is 20.25 ft. The design flow rate is 1,800 ft /sec. Find ... 

Brown, J.G., and Eychaner, J.H., 1988. Simulation of five ground-water withdrawal projections for the Black Mesa area, Navajo and Hopi Indian Reservations, Arizona. U.S. Geol. Survey Water-Resources Invest., 88-4000, 51 pp. 

Cooley, M.E., Harshbarger, J.W., Akers, J.P., and Hardt, W.F., 1969. Regional hydrogeology of the Navajo and Hopi Indian Reservations, Arizona, New Mexico, and Utah. U.S. Geol. Survey Prof. Paper 521-A, 61 pp. 

Dulaney, A.R., 1989. The geochemistry of the N-aquifer system, Navajo and Hopi Indian Reservations, Northeastern Arizona. Unpublished Master thesis, Northern Arizona University, Flagstaff, Arizona, 209 pp. 

Bringing matters somewhat more up to date, it may be mentioned that the Papago Indians of the American Southwest and northwestern Mexico were reported by Joseph G. Lee, M.D., to have a rabies cure. The cure, interestingly, also involved rue. Thus, Dr. Lee, in an article titled Navajo Medicine Man in the August 1961 issue of Arizona Highways, describes rue as a Navajo remedy for rabies. Another is said to be dog lichen, Peltigear canina, which received its name as a folkloric cure for rabies. Nevertheless, most of us would no doubt prefer a modem version of the Pasteur treatment. 

It can of conrse be suggested that the Navajos may also partake of herbal remedies, and similarly for the Indians of northwestern Ontario, the North American tribes with the lowest cancer rates. (It can be argned as well that cancer is inhibited by the Indians biochemical makeup or their genes.)... 

In any event, the Hopi and Pueblo Indians were ever so much better off, can-cerwise, before adopting the typical American diet, as were the Navajo. 

Martin s article also mentions the Pueblo Indians (apparently not the Navajo) who lived close by to the Hopi (either in northern New Mexico or Arizona ) and who had a similar very low cancer incidence until the do-gooders in the government decided to issue food stamps so that these native Americans could enjoy a high meat diet like everyone else, after which the cancer incidence rose to one in four, the same level as the Arizona whites. 

The New Mexico Department of Health, the Arizona Department of Health Services, the Colorado Department of Health, the Utah Department of Health, the Indian Health Service and CDC, with the assistance of the Navajo Nation Division of Health, rapidly mounted an intensive investigation. 

Eidlitz K (1969) Food and emergency food in the circumpolar area, Studia Ethnographica Upsaliensia 32. Almqvist Wiksells, Uppsala, Sweden Elmore FH (1943) Ethnobotany of the Navajo, Monographs of the School of American Research 8. University of New Mexico Press, Santa Fe, NM Emmons GT (1991) The Tlmgit Indians. Anthropological papers of the American Museum of Natural History 70. University of Washington Press, USA Epstein H (1937) Animal husbandry of the Hottentots. Onderstepoort J Vet Sci Anim Ind 9 631-666... 

Fig. 4.8 Navajo Dye Chart ( Ella Myers). Toh-Atin Gallery, Durango, Colorado. Key row 1 scarlet bugler, afterbath from black dye, Brigham tea, brown onion skin, penstemon, sage brush row 2 juniper mistletoe, red onion skin, Indian paint brush, rubber plant row 3 alder bark, Navajo tea, wild black berries, rabbit brush row 4 snake weed, purple larkspur, wild onion, Gambel oak bark row 5 sumac, pinon pitch and ocher, yellow sweet clover, blue flowered lupine, globemallow, goldenrod, grey chamiso...

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