The Blessing Way (1970)

In humans, the kidney is located near the spinal column, just above the hip bones. As part of the excretory system, kidneys filter toxins from the blood. These waste products are collected in the bladder and then expelled from the body as urine.

Referring to Keres, a dialect cluster spoken by several groups of Pueblo people within what is now New Mexico. The dialect is divided into primary two groups, the Eastern and Western groups. The Eastern group includes Cochiti, San Felipe-Santo Domingo, and Zia-Santa Ana Pueblos. The Western group includes Acoma and Laguna Pueblos. Although each Pueblo speaks its own language, the ability to communicate across the dialects is possible.

Kam Bimghi, also spelled Kah Bihgi, Valley is located in Apache County, Arizona. It is also known as Red Rock Valley and has sandstone buttes, spires, and arches that are comparable to those of Monument Valley, some 50 miles to the northeast. The community primarily clusters around Cove Trading Post, which lies on the northeastern slopes of the Lukachukai Mountains.

The Kaibab Plateau is a plateau in northern Arizona located within the larger Colorado Plateau. The Kaibab Plateau is split between the Kaibab National Forest to the north and Grand Canyon National Park to the south. The eastern and western sides of the plateau are bounded by tributaries of the Colorado River, and the northern edge is bounded by cliffs. Located at approximately 8,000 feet in elevation, the plateau is home to a range of forest types including aspen and mixed conifer stands, open stands of old-growth ponderosa pine, and a transitional zone of pinyon pine and juniper scrub near the North Rim of the Grand Canyon.

These evergreen conifers feature leaves that are like scales rather than the needles associated with pine trees. Junipers are well-adapted to hot, arid environments such as the high desert plains and mountains of the U.S. Southwest due to their extensive root systems. Native Americans, such as the Navajo, have traditionally used juniper to treat a range of maladies, including diabetes. Native Americans have also used juniper berries as a female contraceptive.

Junipers tend to grow and migrate in conjunction with the ebb and flow of pinyon pine stand secession. An over-abundance of junipers encroaching into a stand of pinyon pine indicates long-term drought or other ecosystem disturbances, such as over-grazing. In the U.S., the pinyon-juniper woodland range spans from New Mexico to southeastern California. It extends through the Colorado Plateau, Great Basin, and higher elevations of the Mohave Desert.

Newsmaking. Originally associated with reporting on current events via the printed page, currently journalism is understood as a richly complex negotiation of personal judgement, access to information, language and narrative choices, a range of analytical lenses, and the subsequent dissemination of information. These elements combine to produce "news" in the belief, or hope, that if one can observe the world, then one can know it. However, because of the range of elements listed above, the "truth" and "objectivity" of journalistic practices themselves can and should be understood as always under scrutiny.

Kangaroo rats (Diposomys ordii) are a medium sized rodent with long tails and large back legs, which enable them to jump up to nine feet to escape predators. The kangaroo rat is almost perfectly adapted to life in the desert and can survive without drinking any water. Instead, it extracts the moisture it needs from a diet of seeds. Kangaroo rats have excellent hearing and can even detect the practically silent approach of an owl.

John M. Campbell was a professor of archaeology and a former director for the Maxwell Museum of Anthropology at the University of New Mexico. He graduated with his doctoral degree from Yale in 1962 and taught archaeology, cultural ecology, and photography at the University of New Mexico, where he served as chair of the department for many years. In 1997, Campbell published a book-length photo essay called Few and Far Between: Moments in the North American Desert, with a foreward by Tony Hillerman.

A vernacular reference to the adoption of Christianity by Native Americans. In many, but not all, cases, the "road to Jesus" was long, heartbreaking, and ultimately a colonial expression of forced acculturation. Contemporary usage of the phrase does not necessarily refer to the term's colonial history of violence, but the valence of subjugation is doubly resonant in that the journey toward Christianity for both Jesus and Native Americans was a bloody one.

A pair of fused bones that make up the lower portion of the heads of creatures. Also known as the mandible, the lower jawbone hinges just under the cheekbone and is used to crush, pulverize, and masticate solid food.