The Dark Wind (1982)

In the U.S., a felony is a crime punishable by a term of at least one year in a state or federal prison. A felony can also be punishable by death. Also referred to as "high crime," a felony is significantly different from a misdemeanor, which is punishable by short-term imprisonment in a local or county jail or by the imposition of a fine.

There are different degrees of felonies, each corresponding to the seriousness of the crime committed. First degree corresponds to the most serious and egregious crimes including murder, aggravated robbery and assault, and drug cases where a large amount of money is involved. The punishments for these crimes range between 5 and 99 years, up to life in prison.

Second degree felonies are the next step down in intensity of crime including less aggravated robbery, assault, and sexual crimes and result in 2-to-20 years in prison depending on the case. Third degree felony convictions can result in sentences ranging from between 2 and 20 years of prison time, with these sentences being assigned for multiple-offenses of driving while under the influence of alcohol or other drugs, family violence, and lower level drug charges.

Additionally, each of these rankings can be intensified in degree based on prior convictions and arrests. For instance, if a current charge for a crime committed is third degree, but the sentenced individual has a record of prior convictions, the charge can be augmented from third to a second degree felony at the discretion of the judge hearing the case.

The power to rule on legal issues within a certain geographic area. Different courts (for example municipal, district, or federal) will be assigned authority over particular areas or particular cases, depending on state and federal divisions and regulations.

Alaska is the 49th U.S. state, and is located at the northwest tip of the North American continent. The name Alaska is derived from the Native Aleut language's term "alaxsxa" meaning "great land." The territory now known as Alaska has been occupied by indigenous peoples for thousands of years. Starting in the 1700s, European powers competed over control of the region. Alaska's strategic positioning at the center of maritime and aerial routes connecting North America, Europe, and Asia made it a desirable stronghold in terms of both military and commercial significance. In 1867, the U.S. purchased Alaska from Russia but its admission into the union did not occur until 1959. With a land area covering 586,412 miles, Alaska is the largest state in the U.S. Because of its separation and distance from the rest of the country, and challenging geographic and climate conditions, Alaska was slow to be explored and populated by Europeans and Americans. It is still considered the “last American frontier,” stretching over vast areas of undeveloped land and untapped resources, most of which are located on Native Alaskan territory.

Also known as hatałii in Navajo, singers, like medicine men, perform traditional ceremonial healing cures targeted at body, mind, and spirit, and call on the patient, his kin, the singer himself, and divine people to restore an individual's harmony with the world. Before a singer, or medicine man (they are seldom women), is called, a hand trembler (ndilniihii), often a woman, will diagnose the source of illness. Through prayer, concentration, and sprinkling of sacred pollen, her hand will tremble and pinpoint the cause, which then determines the proper ceremonial cure. Then a singer who knows the proper ceremony is called and preparations for the sing are set in motion.

There are nearly 100 Navajo sings, or chants, of varying range and intricacy. Originating from the Navajo Creation Story, they are so nuanced and complex that a singer learns only one or two sings over many years of apprenticeship. Sings last anywhere from one to nine days and include chants, songs, prayers, lectures, dances, sweat baths, prayer sticks, and sand paintings. In order for a sing to be effective, everything must be done as prescribed in the legends.

A term used as a general reference to an indigenous community's spiritual leader or traditional healer. Such a person has the skills and knowledge to perform rituals, heal sick or injured individuals, communicate with ancestors and the otherworld, prepare traditional medicine, and provide spiritual counseling.

The Navajo (Diné) tribe is comprised of more than forty family lineages--or clans--that claim common ancestry. There is no indication that there is an actual Navajo clan by the name of Standing Rock. Tony Hillerman might have invented the name, or there is a possibility that translations vary. The closest real clan is probably Tséikeehé , which literally means "Two Rocks Sit."

The Navajo (Diné) tribe is comprised of more than forty family lineages, or clans, that claim common ancestry. While various other clan names Hillerman mentions in his novels do correspond to actual, existing Navajo lineages, there are not records showing that the Slow Talking Dine is a real one. Hillerman might have invented the name in order to provide a fictional background to the fictional character of Jim Chee, who is, in the novels, a member of the Slow Talking clan.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is the United States’ national security and law enforcement agency, which conducts intelligence-driven investigations of terrorism, counterintelligence, public corruption, fraud, and large scale theft, violent crime, cybercrime, and organized crime. The agency belongs to the Unites States Department of Justice, and its headquarters is located in Washington D.C. There are also local FBI offices in different states. For example, the New Mexico division of the FBI is located in Albuquerque, giving agents access to the area’s various Native American reservations, to which the FBI has access under the Major Crimes. The New Mexico division is frequently referenced in Hillerman's fiction, often as a cause for tension between Navajo police, local state police, and FBI agents all involved in the process of solving a crime.

A social, cultural, and political category that refers to the "dominant" culture of the U.S., a category primarily understood as a racial construction that expresses the legacies of Western European hegemony. Many critiques of "whiteness" exist. General analysis suggests that whiteness has functioned since the early Enlightenment period in Europe (the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries) as an expression of increasingly dogmatic, or strict, white supremacist, patriarchal, heteronormative, and classed biases. Although since at least the 1960s critical racial and comparative ethnic frameworks, in addition to versions of feminist and queer theories, have challenged the privileges that have inhered in "whiteness," critical indigenous critiques comprise a burgeoning field of scholarship and activism that also challenge the colonial settler histories and contemporary practices associated with whiteness.

An elected police official who is in charge of enforcing the law in a county or town of the U.S.