The Dark Wind (1982)

The capital city of the state of Arizona, Phoenix is also known as the “Valley of the Sun.” It was originally settled as an agricultural area that modeled its early irrigation systems on the ancient Hohokam canal system that riddled the valley floor. As with most Southwestern frontier towns Phoenix went through several iterations including periods of Mexican and New Mexican territorial management. The entrance of the railroad, and later the post-World War Two automobile and baby booms, led the city’s population to soar. Phoenix became one of the largest cities in the U.S., despite being located in one of the most water-poor fringes of the Sonoran desert.

Anthropologically, a tribe is a group of people united based on their social organization, belief systems, family relationships, common geneology, and shared language and culture. A more conservative definition includes the caveat that the peoples who live as tribes operate self-sufficiently in their social groups outside of mainstream society and developed as a distinct people many generations ago, before the modern incoporation of nation-states. A more general definition, on the other hand, opens up the meaning to include any groups of people who are united to one another with a collective leader and idea. This can extend beyond ancient peoples to include bands of people that form to collaborate on issues or even behind a music group.

In the United States, the term is probably most familiar in reference to Native American tribes. There are 562 federally recognized Indian tribes, and many others that have not yet achieved federal recognition. 229 of these tribes are located in what is now Alaska, and the others are spread over the United States, some much larger than others. Some tribes have formed distinct, sovereign nations that span multiple states.

These tribes have their own customs, traditions, spiritual views, origin stories, languages, and ways of life developed over thousands of years, long before European settler colonialism.

The more conservative definition of a tribe that specifies the people as living outside mainstream society is not fully appropriate when discussing Native American tribes in what are now the United States. In many cases, tribes have adapted their traditional practices to contemporary times, and many tribal members do not necessarily live in the same place as the majority of their tribe (in the US, often on federally-designated reservations). However, they can still considered a part of the community.

A rifle popular due to its relatively low cost, minimal recoil, and low noise level. The .22 refers to the caliber, or internal diameter, of the barrel of the rifle, as well as the diameter of the cartridge, or projectile, fired by the rifle. In this case, the .22 rifle fires a cartridge that is twenty-two millimeters in diameter.

A vehicle with an enclosed cab and an open rear compartment for transporting cargo.

To obtain a cash loan by providing a material object as collateral. The act of pawning, also known as "hocking," usually via a pawnbroker at a pawn shop, has been in practice in the United States for over two hundred years. When a person needs money, she or he can go to a pawn shop and exchange a valuable item, such as jewelry, electronics, antiques, or musical instruments, in exchange for a cash loan. The object left behind is used as collateral against the cash loan. When customers are able, they can return to repay the loan, essentially buying back the collateral they left behind, often at interest. If borrowers can not repay their loan within a specified time, pawnbrokers sell the abandoned collateral accumulating in their shops in order to recoup their lost "investments," or the loans they extended to their clientele.

In the Southwest, pawnshops are often associated with reservation trading posts, as many early trading posts worked in a fashion similar to pawn shops. If customers were unable to pay cash for supplies, traders preferred obtaining objects as collateral rather extending lines of credit to their rural clientele. Cities such as Gallup, New Mexico, for example, became famous for their pawn shops, which were filled with high quality Navajo textiles and Zuni silversmithing. The flip side of pawn shops, trading posts, and contemporary businesses such as "payday loan" lenders is that, while they offer a "service," they are also often considered predatory. The rates of return on the loans extended always favor the broker, the trader, or the lender and never the individual who requests the loan. This sort of criticism demands that one consideration of the legacies of settler colonialism in the Southwest and elsewhere, including the imposition of cash economies on communities and cultures for whom the use and exchange of currency was an alien concept, yet a practice that was increasingly necessary. Having been forcibly removed from traditional life ways of sustenance and sustainability, traditional communities often struggled to negotiate a landscape where they could no longer provide for themselves unless they were able to purchase the goods, or versions of the goods, they used to provide for themselves. The commodification of their cultures and cultural artifacts has been facilitated, if not demanded, by institutions such as pawn shops and trading posts. So, while the ability to pawn an item for fast cash does provide a service for many folks on and off reservations, pawning items is usually a sign of desperation, or at least desperate times.

The act of surveillance, with the potential for taking disciplinary actions, as well as offering other peace-keeping services, throughout a particular area. In small areas, called "beats," police personnel, called patrolmen, may patrol on foot or on horseback, moving through the streets as a way to ensure order and enforce the law. A highway patrol unit, typically maintained at the state level, is a police unit in charge of enforcing traffic laws and safety regulations on U.S. roads and highways. A patrol car is the most common of several vehicular options utilized for maintaining a police presence in larger areas. Bicycles, motorcycles and helicopters can be used to patrol as well.

An exposed upthrust of rock that appears to break through the earth's surface. These rocky protrusions are produced in areas with extreme or persistent erosion, where soil and vegetation are removed, or never even get the chance to accumulate due to wind, water, waves, fire events, volcanic eruptions, mechanical disturbance, and even shifting tectonic plates. Rock outcrops are often found in mountainous areas or near canyons or ravines and can emerge as the result of the removal of large amounts of earth associated with mining or large scale construction activities.

Also known as the Night Chant, the Night Way is one of the most commonly performed ceremonials in the Navajo tradition. The Night Way (Yébîchai in Navajo) is a healing ceremony that lasts for nine days and nights and is performed only in the winter months. Specifically, the Night Way is meant to restore balance, health, and equilibrium for those suffering from paralysis, blindness, and deafness, although it can also be performed to restore social and natural order between the supplicant and the natural environment. In essence, the Night Chant, as with most Navajo healing ceremonials, endeavors to to ameliorate strained relations between Man and the Universe, thereby restoring order, balance, harmony, and health.

The ritual, perhaps the most complex in the Navajo repertoire of healing chants, includes praying, sacred dancing, pollen blessing, and sandpainting. The singer, or spiritual leader of the ceremony, must recite specific healing chants that are intended to provoke a meditative trance or to create the aural context for the ceremonial. Such chants are often comprised of repeated phrases and can be thought of as sung prayers.

When Hillerman refers to “Navajo Way,” he is referencing the concept of hózhǫ́. Hózhǫ́ is the state in which all living things are ordered, in balance, and walking in beauty. This term encompasses the Navajo world view, one in which all things are peaceful and harmonious. The opposite of hózhǫ́ is hóchxǫ́ǫ́, which refers to disorder and chaos in one’s life. In Hillerman's work, chaos and imbalance manifest as an illness, sickness, or infection obtained from contact with the modern, predominantly White culture and values of the mainstream U.S..

Now known as Arizona Highway 160, Navajo Route 1 is also the portion of US Route 160 that runs through the Navajo Nation in Arizona between Tuba City and Kayenta. From this route, drivers can access Black Mesa, White Mesa, Rt. 264, Preston Mesa, Red Lake, the Navajo National Monument, and Tsegi Canyon.