Designed to attempt an assessment of the quality and quantity of information on traditional Navajo women in view of feminist concerns about the treatment of women in ethnography, data from 10 basic ethnographies on the Navajos and 14 published life histories of Navajo men and women are explored. (Author)

The Indian woman has been viewed as a subservient and oppressed female; often overlooked were the economic, social and political positions women held within tribal societies. The biographies and autobiographies of Indian women that have been obtained over the last century can be used to examine this contradiction in perspectives. These accounts…