Zah was the first elected president in 1990 on the nation's largest tribal reservation, the Navajo Nation, and had been ill for some time, according to his family. Zah died Tuesday at the Tséhootsooí Medical Center in Fort Defiance, Arizona.
The late leader was born in December 1937 in Low Mountain, a section of the reservation, and attended Phoenix Indian School, a boarding school. He later went to community college and on a basketball scholarship, attended Arizona State University with a major in education where he later returned. He worked as the special adviser to the university's president on American Indian Affairs for 15 years.
During his time as chairman, he established the Navajo Nation's Permanent Trust Fund in 1985 after winning a court battle with Kerr McGee. The court case established the tribe's authority to tax companies who extracted minerals from the reservation leading to all coal, pipeline, oil, and gas leases being negotiated with increased payment.