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After the Spanish arrived in the 1600s, the Navajo began to farm sheep and goats as well, with sheep becoming a major source of meat. They also hunted animals for food like deer and rabbits. They made dishes like mutton stew, fried cornbread, and even grilled prairie dog.
However, the Navajo lore says that they already had sheep in the sixteenth century. The sheep provided meat, milk, and wool fiber which was used for the famous classic Navajo blankets and rugs. The effects of the initial introduction of the sheep on the people in the Southwest could be called ‘revolutionary’.
Did Native Americans eat sheep?
Native Americans were still largely hunters and gatherers, but they quickly learned how to raise sheep both for the meat and the Churro’s thick, double-sided fleece and long haired wool.
Did the Navajo eat meat?
Traditional Navajo teachings promote a mostly vegetarian diet. Small game animals were common meals when I was a child.
Wild plants which were gathered for food in early times included greens from beeweed; seed from the hedge mustard, pigweed and mountain grass; tubers of wild onions and wild potato; fruit like yucca, prickly pear, grapes; wild berries such as currants, chokecherries, sumac, rose, and raspberries.
What did the Apaches eat?
The Apache ate a wide variety of food, but their main staple was corn, also called maize, and meat from the buffalo. They also gathered food such as berries and acorns. Another traditional food was roasted agave, which was roasted for many days in a pit. Some Apaches hunted other animals like deer and rabbits.
What happened to the Navajo sheep?
Initially, the Navajo were paid for their sheep as the government slaughtered them, but as the reductions went on sheep, goats and horses were simply shot and their carcasses left to rot in the fields.
What was the most important animal to the Navajo tribe?
For as long as anyone can remember, Churro sheep have been central to Navajo life and spirituality, yet the animal was nearly exterminated in modern times by outside forces who deemed it an inferior breed.
When the Spanish arrived in the Americas in the 16th century, they brought with them a particular breed of sheep: the Churro. This unique breed of sheep became crucial to Navajo life.
1930s
The Navajo Livestock Reduction was imposed by the United States government upon the Navajo Nation in the 1930s, during the Great Depression. The reduction of herds was justified at the time by stating that grazing areas were becoming eroded and deteriorated due to too many animals.
What the Navajo tribe ate?
The food that the Navajo tribe ate included deer, small game such as rabbit and fish. As farmers the Navajo tribe produced crops of corn, beans, squash and sunflower seeds. Their crops, meat and fish were supplemented by nuts, berries and fruit such as melon.
Do Native Americans eat mutton?
As such, New World foods such as corn, boiled mutton, goat meat, acorns, potatoes, and grapes were used widely by the Navajo people prior to and during European colonization of the Americas.