Abstract
Navajos are members of the Navajo Nation, a territory of Native American jurisdiction covering 67,000 km2 in northeastern Arizona, southeastern Utah and northwestern New Mexico. They have the largest number of members of the 565 federally recognized tribes in the U.S. today. This fact demonstrates astonishing resilience in the face of the assimilation policies of the U.S. Government wherein tribal nations were forced to convert to Christianity, thereby attempting to eliminate their indigenous belief systems. Traditional Navajo values, beliefs, philosophies, practices and behavior persist, and even thrive, today. Happiness (Hózhó) among Navajos is embedded in their lived practice of walking in happiness or walking in beauty which reflects their cultural value of the significance in the completion of a harmony-lived normative old age life cycle into immortality. For Navajos, to attain harmony, balance, beauty and order with oneself, one’s loved ones, one’s community and social relations, the natural world, and the universe, results in profound happiness and positive wellbeing.
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Willeto, A.A.A. (2012). Happiness in Navajos (Diné Ba’ Hózhó). In: Selin, H., Davey, G. (eds) Happiness Across Cultures. Science Across Cultures: the History of Non-Western Science, vol 6. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-2700-7_25
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-2700-7_25
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