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According to oral tradition, the Navajo (Dineh)
came into being by emerging through three
worlds—the Black World, the Blue-Green World,
and the Yellow World—before finally reaching the
Glittering World, the one they still inhabit in the
American Southwest. This story, told from genera-
tion to generation for hundreds of years, is believed
by some scholars to confirm their own theories of
how the Navajo came to live in their homeland. Ac-
cording to archaeological evidence, the early Navajo
traveled through the Arctic to central Canada and
on to the Rocky Mountain region before settling in
the lands they occupy today. In their creation story,
the Black World seems to correspond to the cold,
harsh environment of the Arctic, the Blue-Green
World to the Canadian forests, and the Yellow
World to the mountains and plains on the Rockies’
eastern slope.
Like the Navajo’s, the ancestors of all Indians
experienced a southward migration in the distant
past, according to the Bering Strait Theory. The
theory holds that during the last ice age, the waters
of the strait separating Siberia from Alaska with-
drew, exposing between Asia and North America
a land bridge that ancient hunters unwittingly
crossed while following herds of large game. (The
ancestors of the Inuit and Aleut are believed to have
arrived in North America during a much later mi-
gration, perhaps navigating the strait in skin boats.)
Although generally accepted by archaeologists and
other scholars, some Indians contest the Bering
Strait Theory, observing that their creation stories
hold that their people were created in their tradi-
tional homelands.
Once in North America, early Indians fanned
across the continent, following herds of large game
they hunted for food. Beginning in about 11,
B.C., a warming climate forced changes in their way
of life. With rising temperatures, game animals such
as the mammoth and mastodon began to die out.
At the same time, new plants and animals emerged
that were better equipped to survive in the chang-
ing environment. Indians themselves adapted by
taking advantage of these new food sources. Living
as gatherers and small-game hunters, they were able
to inhabit all reaches of North America by about
9000 B.C.
About two thousand years later, Indians
in Mexico developed still another means of increas-
ing their food stores. At that time, they started