“A Navajo Smile” Woman sitting on her porch, Navajo Nation in 1904

A striking photograph was captured by Edward S. Curtis, featuring a Navajo woman adorned with a blanket draped over her shoulders, possibly a Pendleton.

The Navajo people represent the second-largest Native American group in the United States, with a population of approximately 300,000. Before European colonization, the Navajo and Apache migrated from Canada to the Southwest, although the precise timing of this migration remains uncertain, believed to have occurred between 1100 and 1500 CE.

The Navajo Nation spans parts of Utah, Arizona, and New Mexico, encompassing over 27,000 square miles of extraordinary natural beauty. Diné Bikéyah, or Navajoland, is larger than ten of the fifty states in the U.S.