The Ghostway (1984)

At 11,306 feet, Mount Taylor is the highest peak in the San Mateo range, located about 15 miles northeast of Grants, New Mexico. In the winter its snow-capped peak is especially noticeable. During the Spanish rule of the region, the mountain was called Cebolleta (little onion). In 1849, after the U.S.-Mexico War, it was renamed after President Zachary Taylor. For the indigenous peoples of the area, Mount Taylor is a revered and spiritually significant location. In Navajo it is known as Tsoodzil (Turquoise Mountain) and is one of the four sacred mountains that mark the Navajo homeland.

According to Hillerman's version of Navajo mythology, First Man buried turquoise in this range, hence its symbolic blue color. Under Hillerman's interpretation, the chief of the Enemy Gods, Yé'iitsoh, once resided in this peak. When the Twin War Gods (Born for Water and Monster Slayer, sons of Changing Woman) killed Yé'iitsoh, his blood spilled down the slopes and hardened into the lava flows of El Malpais in the area surrounding Grants. The mountain features as a central and meaningful location for Blessingway and Enemyway ceremonies.

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.

The Mountain Way, or the Mountain Chant, refers to a Navajo ceremony, performed by a singer or medicine man (called a hataałii in Navajo), that is performed to address mental uneasiness and nervousness (Reichardt 12).The Mountain Way, similar to other Navajo ceremonials, address individual unease in addition to antisocial tendencies, thereby bringing the group that participates in the ceremonial, including patients and their extended families, into an harmonial accord, or balance (Kluckhohn 169)

Navajo cures are targeted at body, mind, and spirit, calling on the patient, his kin, singer, and divine people to restore his harmony with the world. Before a singer, or medicine man (they are seldom women), is called, a hand trembler, or ndilniihii (often a woman), will diagnose the source of illness. Through prayer, concentration, and sprinkling of sacred pollen, her hand will tremble and pinpoint the cause, which then determines the proper ceremonial cure. Then a medicine man, or hataałii, meaning "singer," who knows the proper ceremony is called and preparations are set in motion.

There are nearly 100 Navajo chants of varying range and intricacy. Originating from the Creation Story, they are so nuanced and complex that a medicine man learns only one or two ways over many years of apprenticeship. Ceremonies last anywhere from one to nine days (the Mountain Way Chant lasts nine days) and include chants, songs, prayers, lectures, dances, sweat baths, prayer sticks, and sand paintings. In order for a ceremony to be effective, everything must be done as prescribed in the legends.

An popular and iconic American newsmagazine that began its circulation in 1933 and was created by former Time magazine foreign-news editor Thomas J. C. Martyn. This magazine focused originally on politics, and only in 1961 did it begin to incorporate popular culture in its pages. As of 2013, this magazine ceased printing and adopted an all-digital format.

A reputable morning daily newspaper based out of New York City that was first published in 1851. The New York Times is known for its editorial excellence and reporting. The paper is available daily with an extra Sunday issue with additional content. The New York Times won a Pulitzer Prize in 1972 for publishing a series of articles about leaked top secret Pentagon papers on the U.S.’s involvement in Vietnam, prior to and during the Vietnam War. While the government officials tried to stem the leak by halting production of the paper, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in favor of the newspaper 6-3, citing freedom of the press. The leaked reports are known as the “Pentagon Papers”.

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.

Also referred to colloquially as "the rez," the Navajo Reservation covers 27,425 square miles of territory and includes portions of northeastern Arizona, southeastern Utah, and northwestern New Mexico. It is the largest land area governed by a Native American sovereign nation in the U.S.. Similar to other areas "reserved" for indigenous Americans, the Navajo Reservation is comprised of a complex interweaving of ongoing negotiations between what it means to embody traditional and contemporary iterations of Native America, especially when Native and non-Native value systems collide in often violent, and sometimes complementary, fashion on, at the borders of, and near the reservation.

Also known as Diné College, Navajo Community College is a two-year community college located in Tsaile, Arizona, with branches in various towns across the Navajo Nation, an area of 26,000 square miles stretching over Northwestern New Mexico, northeastern Arizona, and southern Utah. Established in 1968, Navajo Community College was the first postsecondary institution in the U.S. to be under full tribal control. It was housed in Rough Rock, Arizona until 1969 when the Tsaile campus opened. In 1997, a decision was made to change the name to Diné College to better represent the institution's dedication to the preservation of Navajo/Diné history and tradition.