Dance Hall of the Dead (1973)

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.

Movement from one place to another. In the natural world, groups of animals, including humans, migrate together, undertaking often difficult journeys due to seasonal changes, or because of encroaching habitat loss, the loss of natural resources necessary for survival, or other forms of duress. A migration pattern can evolve over time, where the migration route takes on a circular or cyclical form that is followed year after year.

A rifle that shoots a 30-gauge, or calibre, bullet that was oiringally packed and fired with 30 grains of gun powder. In general, a .30-30 rifle is effective at killing mid-to large-sized game at mid-range shots. In other words, for folks who hunt for food, the .30-30 is an accessible tool for hunting game like deer and elk.

Buttes are similar to mesas in that they are flat-topped hills with steep sides, although they are much smaller than mesas, and tend to stand out as isolated landscape features. The Zuni Buttes are a group of such rock formations located in the northwestern corner of the Zuni Pueblo Reservation in western New Mexico.

A firearm, usually a handgun, with the capacity to fire multiple times prior to reloading. A revolver has a revolving cylinder, usually with six chambers, each of which can be loaded with a single cartridge. As the firearm is fired, the cylinder advances, or rotates, bringing the next cartridge into position for firing.

Approximately 56.2 million acres of land within the United States are designated as Native American reservations, areas of land set aside for the perpetual use of indigenous groups, many of whom were forcefully relocated onto them. Sometimes reservations are sited on land traditionally used by the people before conquest and colonization. In other cases, Native American reservations are located away from their traditional lands as a result of 18th-, 19th-, and 20th century federally-supported practices that expropriated natural resources, throughfares, and lands under the premises that the land was "vacant," its resources were not being properly exploited, and because of racial biases that privileged European settlement patterns based on ownership rather than fluid and multiple landuse practices.

In Hillerman's Navajo detective fiction, "radioman" is an anachronistic reference to what are today known as dispatchers, individuals who work in a dispatch center to facilitate the transmission and tracking of information, often but not always during emergency responses to traffic accidents, natural disasters, and civil disturbances. Radiomen have a military origin that goes back to before World War I, when radio units consisted of "pack sets," which were so large that 10 men were needed to set-up and operate the equipment that was transported by 4 pack mules around the field of action. Over time, Radioman became a naval designation that was eventually merged with that of the Data Processing Technician, and eventually became the Information Systems Technician. Regardless of their title, the individuals who fill these positions are responsible for facilitating communication and, in the process, coordinating operations under the purview of their parent agency.

The layer of rock that tops some geological uplifts. Often seen in the form of a wall or cliff, rimrock forms a cap and sometimes even an overhang over the softer rock beneath, which, as it erodes, can create sculpturesque forms in the remaining geologic material, including caves.

A rifle is a firearm with an extended barrel that is generally raised up to the shoulder for firing. The interior surface of the long barrel is carved with spiral grooves down its length. The length of the barrel, in combination with its interior grooves, improves the accuracy of the shot fired by increasing the stability of the projectile as it spins out of the barrel. The rifle, as opposed to another long-barreled firearm, the shotgun, fires a single projectile at a time.