In the summer scattered members of the various families or clans gather
there by hundreds from every part of the reservation to feast together
for a week or two on green corn, melons, and peaches.

As a rule, however, each hogán stands by itself, and it is usually
hidden away so effectually that the traveler who is not familiar with
the customs of the people might journey for days and not see half a
dozen of them. The spot chosen for a dwelling place is either some
sheltered nook in a mesa or a southward slope on the edge of a piñon
grove near a good fuel supply and not too far from water. A house is
very seldom built close to a spring--perhaps a survival of the habit
which prevailed when the people were a hunting tribe and kept away from
the water holes in order not to disturb the game which frequented them.

So prevalent is this custom of placing the houses in out-of-the-way
places that the casual traveler receives the impression that the region
over which he has passed is practically uninhabited. He may, perhaps,
meet half a dozen Indians in a day, or he may meet none, and at sunset
when he camps he will probably hear the bark of a dog in the distance,
or he may notice on the mountain side a pillar of smoke like that
arising from his own camp fire. This is all that he will see to indicate
the existence of other life than his own, yet the tribe numbers over
12,000 souls, and it is probable that there was no time during the day
when there were not several pairs of eyes looking at him, and were he
to fire his gun the report would probably be heard by several hundred
persons. Probably this custom of half-concealed habitations is a
survival from the time when the Navaho were warriors and plunderers,
and lived in momentary expectation of reprisals on the part of their
victims.