The people of the Four Corners area called themselves Dine', (or Navajo which was given to them by the Spaniards). The Navajos are truly an enduring society considering the depth of history during the past four centuries. They sustained a livelihood in which the simplicity of the social domain commanded. They flourished vividly only to succumb to the incursion of a new society.
Navajos are a group of people along with the Apache who migrated into the southwest from the Canadian region during the middle of the 2nd millenium. However our belief to our existence is the mythological emergence into this world, which is characterized as the fourth world. Our primary lifestyle was nomadic and simple.
The interactions with new societies change the Navajo forever. Beginning with Spain, Mexico, New Mexico, and ending with the Union States of the Americas, the Navajo lifestyle plummeted into economic hardship…almost to a point of extinction. 8000 in numbers are exiled to the south central part of New Mexico as part of the American order of peace.
Exodus. In 1868, a treaty was summoned and signed giving the Navajos permission to return back to the four sacred mountains. In addition to the return, an allowance of livestock and utensils were given to the Navajos for their occupation. The years were rigid however the locality was glorious than the one that was 300 miles to the southeast. The population grew rapidly as did their land base. Strange to them those imaginary lines end their allotment. However the Navajos had the largest `reservation' set forth by the United States and it continued to expand.
In 1923, the Navajo Nation Government was created under the Federal Government. John Collier, an agent for the BIA administered the location of the new government. Since Fort Defiance was a key garrison sixty years earlier, a central government near this old fort would function well. Tse' gha'h ood za'n (hole in the rock) was chosen as the site for the Navajo Nation's Government.
Window Rock is a place that has special meaning to people such as the Navajos. It is a threshold. It acts as a door to their homeland. The people say there was a spring as its basin, a sacred element.
Wind and fire made the feature…and the land, our mother, seeded life.