The Blessing Way (1970)

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.

A sharp bend in a road, path, trail, or even railroad that results in a zigzag movement through time and space, usually in order to travel up or down a mountain. Although switchbacks, also referred to as doglegs, add time and distance to a route, they lessen the amount of vertical climb or descent accomplished over a given distance.

Middle Way is another term used for the Navajo Way, hózhǫ́, the spiritual and philosophical intention of keeping one's life in balance and peace. Equilibrium is the key to the Middle Way, and if one's life becomes imbalanced, a ceremony must be completed to regain harmony.

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.

A reference to the moon leaving the sky as the sun rises. In Navajo mythology the moon and sun were created by First Man and First Woman. The sun is given a blue mask and the moon a white mask and both are given eagle feathers to help them move across the sky. However, due to the wind the moon lost its feathers and so follows a strange path through the sky. The moon is often referred to as one of the Holy People in Navajo mythology.

A four-wheeled wooden vehicle that is pulled by draft animals such as oxen and horses. They generally have metal wheels and a suspension system to help navigate. These vehicles have been used for the last 2,000 years; however, with the advent of motorized vehicles they have fallen into disuse.

In Navajo folklore, Gum-Tooth Woman (sometimes known as Tooth-Gum Woman) appears to be a humorously indecent, bawdy character whose role in tales is to make sexual innuendos in an amusing manner as a way of a highlighting a moral principle.

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 dollar coin that was originally made of silver in Europe, and was first issued by the royalty of England and Scotland in the 16th century. The United States of America first minted silver dollars in 1794, and those coins announced the establishment of the dollar as the country's official denomination. Although the early, high-value silver coins were not commonly circulated, they did pave the way to the production of inexpensive circulating dollar coins. Today the silver dollar is a collector's item that is made of white metal rather than real silver and that features different designs according to notable events in U.S. history.

Although many indigenous groups in the U.S. Southwest are considered master jewelry makers and silversmiths, with unique designs and methods to their credit, silversmithing did not become a skilled trade in these communities until after European contact in the region occurred. The Navajo, for example, first obtained silver ornaments by trading with the Plains Indians, who had received it from German settlers, and also from the indigenous, Spanish, and later Mexican, further south. It was not until after the 1860s and the war on the Navajo, which culminated in the Long Walk to Bosque Redondo, that Navajo took up silversmithing as their own trade, extracting the silver from U.S. coins. They quickly incorporated turquoise, abundant in the southwest and already used for many purpose, into their work. For Navajo singers and medicine men, medicine bundles and pouches were often decorated with silver, along with fringe and turquoise.