The Ghostway (1984)

Most cultures have some form of kinship system, and depending on the culture, who is included and how the system is set up can vary. In many contemporary Western traditions, kinship is determined by one's descent from and connection to the male lineage of an extended biological network. However, depending on the system, kinsmen can include women, men, spirits, or animals. Kinship can be important as it can define what members of society are viable sexual partners for reproduction. For instance, those who are considered your kin are excluded as acceptable matches. On the other hand, kinship can also define social connections, allegiances, and communal networks of reciprocity.

The Navajo are matrilineal, meaning a kinship system based on the mother’s family rather than the fathers, this means that when married all property is owned by women and the men move into the wife’s household. Additionally, the Navajo kinship system is based on clans, and when children are born they have two clans, their mother’s and their father’s. Their mother’s clan is the dominant clan, “born to” and their father’s clan is “born for”. It is considered incest for any Navajo to engage in relations with someone who is part of their mother, father, or grandparent’s clans. The children will have stronger ties to their mother’s clan.

Runoff occurs when water from snowmelt or rain runs along the surface of the earth without being absorbed into the soil. Over time, runoff contributes to erosion. In large amounts, runoff can cause flooding.

The Hopi have lived in the U.S. Southwest for thousands of years, and while their ancestral lands span large swaths of the Southwest, the Hopi Reservation currently covers 1.5 million acres of northeastern Arizona. Within this tract of land there are twelve villages and three mesas. The Hopi Reservation is situated within the Navajo Nation Reservation, a relationship that has caused conflict for over 100 years, as a number of land disputes has resulted in the decrease in size of Hopi land and the creation of a shared Joint-Use territory. While a majority of the Hopi live on three mesas, First, Second, and Third Mesas, there is a Hopi farming community near Tuba City, established in the 1870’s.

Hopi lands first came under control of the U.S. government in 1848 at the end of the Mexican-American War. The war ended with the signing of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, where Mexico ceded the southwest, Wyoming, and California to the United States of America. As the Hopi historically avoided interaction with the U.S. government and have always attempted to maintain privacy and sovereignty, the boundary of the Hopi reservation was not determined until 1882. The 1882 U.S. Executive Order-Hopi Indian Reservation originally allotted 2.4 million acres of land to the Hopi. However, this is only a fraction the original 15-million-acre Hopi Tutskwa, or aboriginal Hopi lands. Additionally, when the boundary was drawn, it exclude a large portion of the historic tribal land on which sacred sites, shrines, and villages existed. Later, Hopi reservation land was further reduced in size to 1.5 million acres. The current Hopi tribal lands include the main reservation, the Moenkopi District Reservation, and the Hopi Three Canyon Ranch Lands.

Navajos have strict taboos regarding death, as it is believed that contact with the deceased can can place the living in contact with the roaming spirit of the dead, causing an imbalance in the living called ghost sickness. It is believed that if a person dies inside a structure, his or her spirit is trapped inside the structure, contaminating the structure and making it uninhabitable. A hole is created in the northern wall of the hogan to release the ghost, known as chindi in Navajo, from the structure. The hogan is then either left to decay or burned down. If the hogan is left abandoned, all openings other than the corpse hole are closed in order to warn others as to what has happened in the dwelling.

A Navajo term which means “those who wander around,” in reference to Spaniards who conducted expeditions into the Southwest and Great Plains during the 1500s, beginning with Coronado's search for the Seven Cities of Cibola. The earliest recorded contact between the Spaniards and Navajo occurred in 1583 near Mount Taylor in New Mexico. This term is used colloquially by some Navajo to denote someone who is ethnically Hispanic or Mexican.

A mixture of lime or gypsum, sand, and water that is applied to the walls of structures as a sealant. In the Southwest, many pueblos are made of adobe, which comes from the Spanish verb adobar, meaning “to plaster.” Part of the annual maintenance cycle of pueblo structures can include the ritual of whitewashing, or plastering, interior and exterior walls with a local derivative of plaster. Stucco also became part of the Southwest's architectural palette and can be found on the exterior of many contemporary buildings as well.

In some versions of Navajo traditional beliefs, when people die, their ghosts, which are understood as their essence or spirit, can linger in the place of dying and possible cause harm to the living. The Navajo word for a ghost is “chindi," and chindi is associated with ghost sickness, a malaise that can manifest through a variety of physical, mental, or emotional symptoms. There are very specific precautions used to prevent ghost sickness, such as avoiding all contact with the deceased person's belongings, destroying the person's possessions whenever possible, and removing footprints from around the site of the grave. Additionally, if a Navajo were to die inside his/her dwelling place, their ghost is thought to be released into the room, where it can remain for a long time. If this happens, then the hogan would have to be permanently vacated in order to avoid potentially infecting any Navajo who entered it. In such cases, the dead person would either be left in the hogan or brought out of the structure through a hole made in the northern wall. After the deceased has been removed from the hogan, the house is never to be inhabited again in hopes that the ghost will eventually leave through the same hole that was made in the north-facing wall.

In the Navajo belief system, ghosts are generally not perceived as malevolent, but as a natural phenomenon that is part of the transformation entailed in the dying process. Right before death ghosts are often described as dark shadows, and after death they may reappear on earth in the form of an animal, whirlwind, or certain unusual sounds and movements. Ghosts tend to become malignant forces when the corpse is not handled properly in the prescribed manner set by traditional customs.

Sagebrush, often shortened to "sage," is the name of a group of plants that are commonly referred to as sagebrushes or sageworts. These are plants in the genus Artemisia, a large genus in the daisy and ragweed family, and are often used as a culinary herb or tea in different cultures around the world. The sagebrush that is native to the American Southwestern regions is a low-growing bush that is characterized by its grayish-green color and aromatic leaves.

Sagebrush is widely used in various Native American ceremonies, and is thought to have cleansing and healing properties. Traditionally, sage leaves are dried and tied into bundles that in English are called "smudge sticks." when the end of the smudge stick is lit and allowed to smolder, the dried, tightly-bound sage leaves burn slowly like incense, producing thick smoke that is believed to act as an energy cleanser and protector for a person or a dwelling place.