Listening Woman (1978)

A pistol is a firearm, or gun, that can be used with one hand, leaving the other hand free for defense or the use of another weapon. There are two main classes of pistols: revolvers and automatics. Revolvers are multi-shot firearms, meaning individual bullets are encased in a revolving element. Automatic pistols are more modern and involve multiple bullets stored in a magazine chamber just below the barrel of the gun.

The term Piper refers to a small, general aviation aircraft, usually used for private flights. The Piper Aircraft Corporation was established in 1937 by William T. Piper. Since the company's inception, it has designed and manufactured over 144,000 planes in 160 models.

A high wing Piper has its wings coming off the roof of the aircraft, above the sight line of the pilot, and a low-wing piper has them coming out of the bottom of the aircraft with the tips visible to the pilot.

The capital city of the state of Arizona, Phoenix is also known as the “Valley of the Sun.” It was originally settled as an agricultural area that modeled its early irrigation systems on the ancient Hohokam canal system that riddled the valley floor. As with most Southwestern frontier towns Phoenix went through several iterations including periods of Mexican and New Mexican territorial management. The entrance of the railroad, and later the post-World War Two automobile and baby booms, led the city’s population to soar. Phoenix became one of the largest cities in the U.S., despite being located in one of the most water-poor fringes of the Sonoran desert.

Anthropologically, a tribe is a group of people united based on their social organization, belief systems, family relationships, common geneology, and shared language and culture. A more conservative definition includes the caveat that the peoples who live as tribes operate self-sufficiently in their social groups outside of mainstream society and developed as a distinct people many generations ago, before the modern incoporation of nation-states. A more general definition, on the other hand, opens up the meaning to include any groups of people who are united to one another with a collective leader and idea. This can extend beyond ancient peoples to include bands of people that form to collaborate on issues or even behind a music group.

In the United States, the term is probably most familiar in reference to Native American tribes. There are 562 federally recognized Indian tribes, and many others that have not yet achieved federal recognition. 229 of these tribes are located in what is now Alaska, and the others are spread over the United States, some much larger than others. Some tribes have formed distinct, sovereign nations that span multiple states.

These tribes have their own customs, traditions, spiritual views, origin stories, languages, and ways of life developed over thousands of years, long before European settler colonialism.

The more conservative definition of a tribe that specifies the people as living outside mainstream society is not fully appropriate when discussing Native American tribes in what are now the United States. In many cases, tribes have adapted their traditional practices to contemporary times, and many tribal members do not necessarily live in the same place as the majority of their tribe (in the US, often on federally-designated reservations). However, they can still considered a part of the community.

A vehicle with an enclosed cab and an open rear compartment for transporting cargo.

The act of surveillance, with the potential for taking disciplinary actions, as well as offering other peace-keeping services, throughout a particular area. In small areas, called "beats," police personnel, called patrolmen, may patrol on foot or on horseback, moving through the streets as a way to ensure order and enforce the law. A highway patrol unit, typically maintained at the state level, is a police unit in charge of enforcing traffic laws and safety regulations on U.S. roads and highways. A patrol car is the most common of several vehicular options utilized for maintaining a police presence in larger areas. Bicycles, motorcycles and helicopters can be used to patrol as well.

Meaning "hard stick" in Spanish and also known as the Grand Canyon of Texas, this 120-mile-long, 20-mile-wide canyon is located in the Texas Panhandle near Amarillo. European contact with the canyon's indigenous inhabitants began with the Coronado expedition in 1541. In 1874, the Kiowa and Comanche were forcibly removed from the canyon to reservation lands in Oklahoma.

There are two groups of Paiute people, Northern and Southern, and although there are some similarities between them, the Northern and Souther Paiutes are each made up of a number of smaller, unique, nomadic bands with their own specific cultural traditions. The Paiute refer to themselves as "Nuwu," or "person," and have dwelt in the Great Basin region since about CE 1000-1200. Paiute may have meant "Water Ute" or "True Ute" and was used to refer only to the Southern Paiute until the 1850s.

Because the Southern Paiute continue to live in what is now southwest Utah, southern Nevada, and northwest Arizona, Tony Hillerman is most likely referring to them in his Navajo detective novel series, as most of the action for the series occurs in the Southwestern U.S..

An exposed upthrust of rock that appears to break through the earth's surface. These rocky protrusions are produced in areas with extreme or persistent erosion, where soil and vegetation are removed, or never even get the chance to accumulate due to wind, water, waves, fire events, volcanic eruptions, mechanical disturbance, and even shifting tectonic plates. Rock outcrops are often found in mountainous areas or near canyons or ravines and can emerge as the result of the removal of large amounts of earth associated with mining or large scale construction activities.

A fictional series of murders created by Tony Hillerman in his 1978 Navajo detecitve novel Listening Woman. In the novel, Detective Joe Leaporn has never heard of the Olds Prairies Murders, which are described as an attack by Texas Rangers on a Kiowa camp in West Texas, which killed 11 children and 3 adults. While the Texas Rangers did engage in a lot of battles with the tribes of Texas under the guise of "protecting the state," this particular event seems to be created for the purposes of fictional exposition.