respondents. Additional statements were received from ten individuals interviewed by relocation personnel. A detailed accounting of the individuals interviewed by sex and birthdate along with the interview occasion or information source appears in Appendixes 1 and 2. THE QUESTION OF SIGNIFICANCE The significance of place in the reconstruction of Navajo religious philosophy to be presented below lies in relationships to the whole, and ordered, all-inclusive unity. From the perspective of people in an area such as Big Mountain, the significance of place is more direct. People have ties to place in terms of ancestral use-rights, familiarity, and the specific locations of places where prayers and offerings are made for their well-being. Euro-American views of significance are more segmental and analytical, at least as they are represented in the legislative arena. There are relatively few successful cases involving the question of the religious significance of Native American lands. The recent case of Taos Pueblo's claim to Blue Lake is perhaps the most comprehensive 1 and revealing in terms of testimony. We mention this case here because questions raised in the testimony are clues to admissible indicators of the significance of sacred places. Our interpretation of these questions and testimony may be summarized in the following unordered list of indicators. An unqualified indication of significance is signified by a "yes" or "no" answer to the question. 1 Hearings Before the Subcommittee of the Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs, U. S. Senate. 91 Cong.. 2nd Session. July 9 and 10, 1970. Is there a symbiotic relationship among land, religion, and -Does the place play an important role in the origin myth of the people? Yes. Can shrines or places of offering be moved or relocated? Has the area been used for a long time, continuously, and No. Do people today feel as they have in the past toward the sacred Does the area symbolize unity and continuity of the people? Yes. Do ceremonies and rituals "bind" people to the specific locations? Can the ceremonies and rituals be carried out elsewhere? No. This list of indicators will serve as a point of reference in subsequent discussion following a brief review of the concept of place in Navajo religion and the data on sacred places in the Big Mountain vicinity. NAVAJO RELIGION AND THE CONCEPT OF PLACE In Reichard's Navajo religous acts and attitudes are not as compartmentalized as are the religious acts and attitudes of many Euro-Americans. words: "...it is religion which integrates all phases of Navajo culture..." (1944:2). But Navajo religion is not monolithic and immutable. There is variation in religious knowledge and belief, and the full impacts of Christianity and the Native American Church remain to be seen. The following are only some of the principal themes in Navajo religion; themes that are abstracted mostly from summaries by Leland C. Wyman and Gladys A. Reichard to provide a context for discussion of the Big Mountain area. According to Wyman: "The core of Navajo religious philosophy is the belief that the universe is an orderly, all-inclusive, unity of interrelated elements in which the principal of reciprocity governs man's relations with these elements, which include other men" (1975:4). This order and the rules by which man lives were established by the gods and Holy People. Improper contact with inherently dangerous powers unconscious - or the breaching of traditional restrictions (taboos) may lead to illness, the price Restoring and maintaining harmony (blessing), exorcising evil, and protection from danger are accomplished in ceremonies that are mostly curative (except Blessingway), occasional, and personal, and through prayers and offerings. These rites, ceremonies, and prayers and offerings were also established by the gods and Holy People. : There are no priesthoods or religious societies. of the ceremonies Expert knowledge their mythological charters as well as their is held by persons known as chanters or singers. Frisbie Individual chanters may have expert knowledge of from one to five or six ceremonies of an active number of somewhere around twenty. and McAllester (1978:1) estimate that there are only three or four hundred chanters on the entire reservation today. There are also persons who have the ability to diagnose and divine through hand-trembling and crystal-gazing, and some persons have detailed knowledge of the use of plants for healing and in ceremonies. Chanters, too, may have this knowledge. Additionally, "...almost every adult man and numerous older women know and perform shorter rituals taken from a repertory' of prayerstick cuttings, jewel and pollen offerings and 'short sings' " (Frisbie and McAllester 1978:1). all are Supernatural power is immanent in nature. "Animals, plants, mountains, and many natural. phenomena are endowed with power. Even the seemingly most insignificant of these are indispensable; interdependent, being complementary parts of the whole. Animals and plants are conceived as capable of assuming human form at will, mountains have anthropomorphic inner forms, (Wyman 1975:8-9, emphasis ours). Partly because of the immanence of supernatural power, the pantheon of gods and Holy People is vast and complicated. "Factors that (further) complicate the picture are the equivalence of beings appearing under different names or as various actors in the myths, the multiplication of dieties in time and space, (and) duplication of functions among the different dieties..." (Wyman 1975:8, parentheses ours). "Place symbolism", as Reichard (1944:26) calls it, is central in Navajo religion. The mythical charters of most chants or sings have lists of place names visited by the heros of the myth. And, origin myths are full of references to place. This geography is largely mythical and symbolic, but it is usually tied to physical place. The geography of the present world, for example, was duplicated in the previous underworlds, and mythological explanations account for the origin of geographic features as well as the rules which govern man and the universe. Names for places in myths are relatively consistent, but sometimes there is lack of agreement concerning their physical locations. In addition to the symbolic nature ci place, this variation may be the result of chanters' and others' identification with their own localities (Reichard 1944:26), as well as a reluctance to specify exact locations for fear of losing powe: (Fishler 1953:92). Finally, there is certainty about foreign territory; it is unfamiliar and "uncontrolled". When setting out on a journey or while traveling, prayers and offerings are more frequent (Reichard 1944:16). Reichard has proposed that certain symbolism in Navajo ceremony represents a protective line or danger line behind or within which one is protected by ritual. She further suggests that a .belief in the danger line explains the more urgent need for prayer when a man travels since he may inadvertently cross it and he knows not what dangers lie beyond" (1944:17). SACRED PLACES IN THE BIG MOUNTAIN AREA THE NATURE OF SACRED PLACES The question of significance has been addressed, but the definition of "sacred place" has been delayed until now because in our view a basic understanding of the role of place in Navajo religión provides the necessary context. We have seen that the belief in immanent supernatural power in nature and the geographization of that power are pervasive sentiments in Navajo religious philosophy. In the spirit of this view, Editha Watson has defined a Navajo "Sacred Place" · as: 1) a location mentioned in legend: 2) a place where communicates with the supernatural world by means of |