Why do Navajo Indians bury their dead with their shoes on the wrong feet?

Answer 1

That is one tradition. Navajo funeral traditions are not much talked about and discussion about them and death is avoided. Reasons are not given.

There are different traditions in different clans and different parts of the large Navajo Nation. Not all would do this. Now some families mix Christian and Native American Church traditions in as well.

In the traditional beliefs, burial was done without discussion by two or four people who then needed to keep separate from others for four days and have ceremonies because of the contact with death. In older times bodies were not buried but wrapped in a blanket and put in a crevasse or cave away from all people, often to the north. If a someone died in a traditional hogan the body was taken out a hole broken in the north wall and the building was abandoned.