Listening Woman (1978)

A general reference to the societal construction of and belief in "the law" as a body of order, surveillance, and discipline. The "law" can also be practiced by lawyers and advocates as well as enacted by public servants, such as police officers. Hillerman's relationship with "the law," at least in his novels, is ambiguous. At times, the law, as dictated by a society, serves to extract civil order from uncivil chaos. On the other hand, cultural traditions, such as those he observed on the Navajo and other reservations, seem to express a natural law, one that perhaps informs but that also transcends jurisprudence, for example the Navajo idea of hózhǫ́, an expression of natural equilibrium. The protagonists in Hillerman's Navajo detective novels, Leaphorn and Chee, are often placed in situations where they understand the written laws, but remain aware of the limitations and contradictions of the written law as it is practiced.

Land of the People, also known as Dinétah, refers to the ancestral and traditional homeland of the Navajo. Dinétah extends beyond the political boundaries of the Navajo Reservation to include traditional cultural properties that have been part of Navajo lifeways and cosmology for centuries. Four mountains, or sacred peaks, anchor Dinétah and its people: Mount Blanca (Tsisnaasjini'), Dawn or White Shell Mountain, the sacred mountain of the East, near Alamosa, Colorado; Mount Taylor (Tsoodzil), Blue Bead or Turquoise Mountain, the sacred mountain of the South, near Grants, New Mexico; the San Francisco Peaks (Doko'oosliid), Abalone Shell Mountain, the sacred mountain of the West, near Flagstaff, Arizona; and Mount Hesperus (Dibé Nitsaa) Big Mountain Sheep or Obsidian Mountain, the sacred mountain of the North, in the La Plata Mountains of Colorado.

A lance is a long-shafted throwing or thrusting device used for hunting. It is similar to a javelin, and is sometimes referred to as a spear. The lance point can be made of stone, bone, hardened wood, or steel. Although the long shaft of the lance is typically made of wood, which biodegrades over time, the point retains its integrity as time passes, making lance points a significant find in the lithic, or stone, remains from ancient cultures around the world. In terms of archaeological research, lance points, which are similar to hand-crafted arrow heads, are like the fingerprints of a culture. Studying them can reveal where the materials to make the points came from, where the groups using the points traveled, how much time, energy, and skill the individuals crafting the points had, as well as the kind of game that was hunted.

Lake Powell is a reservoir that was formed in 1963 with the construction of the Glen Canyon Dam and the flooding of the Colorado River. While located mainly in Utah, it also stretches across parts of Arizona. The creation of Lake Powell was both lauded and controversial. Water recreationists celebrated access to what would become the second-largest reservoir in the nation, with over 2,000 miles of lake-front access while those more interested in hiking bemoaned the loss of red slot canyons and back country wilderness. However, there was little public debate concerning the drowning of Native American sites. Ancient Puebloan structures and other artifacts and traditional cultural properties, sacred sites, and landscapes were destroyed in the deluge that formed the reservoir.

A building or maze with passageways that intersect and dead-end and that are often intentionally difficult to navigate. This term comes from the Greek word λαβύρινθος (labyrinthos). In ancient Greek mythology, King Minos of Crete built a labyrinth in his palace in Knossos in order to trap a Minotaur. Other traditions find labyrinths built as garden landscapes for focus and meditation, whereas other labyrinths are meant to represent spiritual quests for enlightenment.

A conflict that occurred in the 1950s between the Republic of Korea (South Korea) and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (North Korea) in East Asia. After the conclusion of World War II and the Japanese were ousted from Korea, the Korean peninsula was split into a northern half occupied by the former Soviet Union (USSR) and a southern half occupied by the United States of America. It was initially intended for the two halves to become unified; however, the escalation of the Cold War prevented unification, and each half developed its own government. The north developed under communist activist Kim Il-Sung, while the south became anti-communist under Syngman Rhee. With the backing of the USSR, in 1950 Kim Il Sung declared himself the ruler over the entire Korean Peninsula, and this was the antecedent of the Korean War.

The Korean War lasted from June 1950 to July 1953 and resulted in over 3 million casualties. During the conflict, the south was supported by the United Nations, including a large U.S. presence, while the north was assisted by communist China and the U.S.S.R. Fourteen other governments also sent forces to Korea throughout the duration of the conflict. The war ended with an agreement that the area below the 38th parallel would be governed by South Korea.

Klethla Valley is located in the Four Corners region of Arizona on the Navajo Nation between Black Mesa to the south, and Shonto Plateau to the north. This 10-mile long valley is also known as Klethlana Valley.

In Puebloan tradition, a kiva is both a sacred space to observe religious rituals as well as a society associated with a particular kiva. Kivas symbolize Puebloan emergence, or birth, into this world, and their architecture evokes an enclosed space of sacred potential. The training associated with healing rituals or with the social responsibilities of each kiva society occurs within the particualr kiva associated with thatspecific power or responsibility. Each kiva cares for and is identified by a mask associated with its guiding entity, a force or persona associated with weather, health, warfare, or collective well-being.

Christopher "Kit" Carson was one of the most famous Western explorers during the 1800s. In the 1840s, he traveled as a guide with John C. Fremont through the Great Basin, and Fremont's written accounts were what made Carson both popular and notorious as an adventurer.

In the 1850s, Carson became an Indian agent for New Mexico and in the 1860s worked as a lieutenant colonel in the 1st New Mexico Volunteers. Even though Carson was often thought of as a friend of the Indians (he lived with and married into the Arapaho and Cheyenne tribes), he might be most infamously known for the war he waged against the Navajo in the early 1860s, forcing them to relocate away from their traditional homeland (Dinétah) and in to the Bosque Redondo, a 40-square mile reservation on the Texas/New Mexico border, along with the Apache. At first, the Navajo resisted the move, and Carson subsequently terrorized the tribe by burning crops, destroying homes, and killing livestock, eventually forcing the Navajo to march hundreds of miles to the new reservation in what became known as the Long Walk.

A Great Plains tribe whose original homeland was in the area now known as western Montana, but who migrated south along the Rocky Mountains through the 1600s and 1700s. The Kiowa were a warrior nation, especially feared for their fierce and effective raiding tactics after acquiring horses from Spanish settlers south of the Rio Grande, yet they eventually succumbed to the pressure of encroaching Anglo-European settlement. In 1867, the Kiowa were relocated to a reservation in what is now southwestern Oklahoma. The transition to "settled" reservation life was difficult, yet Kiowa material culture flourished. As early as the 1890s, Kiowa artists were internationally renowned for their beadwork and ledger painting, a derivation of Plains Indian narrative hide painting. As both the bison and indigenous cultures suffered from federally sponsored eradication programs during the 1900s, Kiowa artists began painting on pages torn from the ledger books instead of buffalo hide, ironically overwriting the text of the settler colonizers.

Today, the Kiowa Tribe of Oklahoma is federally recognized, and the Kiowa language, part of the Tanoan family,is still spoken. Kiowa call themselves Ka'igwu, meaning "Principal People."