A mechanical device used to elevate the axle of vehicle so that one tire is raised off the ground, enabling one to access and change the tire. Most cars have a relatively small, manual jack stored in the same compartment as the spare tire. Professional mechanics often use a larger, hydraulic jack, and in commercial car garages there are often electric pallets that lift the whole car for complete access to all four wheels at the same time, as well as to the underside of the car's body.
A hogan is one of several traditional Navajo structures. Building hogans has ceremonial significance, and instructions for their construction have been passed down for generations, originating with the Holy People. In creation stories, the whole Navajo homeland is referred to as a hogan, and the walls that comprise the hogan's construction correspond with each of the cardinal directions and the four sacred mountains that mark the breadth of the Navajo homeland. As an extension of the Navajo belief system, the hogan's health and equilibrium need to be nourished and protected, similar to the people who live inside it. Although a hogan functions on a daily level as a ceremonial space for the observance of cumulatively significant small rituals, the hogan can also provide a space for larger healing practices such as ceremonial singing and associated sandpaintings.
A hormone, also known as epinephrine, that is secreted by the adrenal glands, especially when a person is under stress, because it increases the body's ability to respond to threats. While spelling adrenalin without an extra "e" is technically correct, the more common spelling of this word is adrenaline with the "e."
The earth is made of multiple layers of hardened and liquid rocks, which include, moving from the exterior of the planet toward the interior, the crust, mantle, outer core, and inner core. The crust is the hardened outer layer of rock composed primarily of silicate and iron.
Also called a dynamo, a generator is a machine that produces electrical power from mechanical power. While the mechanical power can be generated in a number of ways, often a generator uses a gasoline or diesel engine to produce electricity to power other devices. Generators are a common method of generating electricity in remote or undeveloped areas, or when someone wants to remain off the power grid.
To formally, if not ritually, bring an individual into a specific group or organization. The initiation process can be triggered by coming of age and reaching a certain societal point of maturation, by accomplishing a series of tasks, or by learning the steps, songs, and procedures of various ceremonials, among many other possibilities. To become initiated into a group suggests that one has passed from one stage of life into another, from one series of responsibilities to another, and from one set of behaviors to another.
A historically incorrect but contemporaneously common method of referring to the indigenous peoples of the Americas. Believing, or hoping, that they had stumbled upon the eastern shores of the subcontinent of India, fifteenth- and sixteenth-century European explorers called the local peoples they encountered "indios" (in Spanish) or Indians; the misnomer stuck and is a vernacular conundrum that persists in the Americas through to the present. Contemporary references to indigenous peoples in the Americas have replaced "Indian" with tribal names, or the terms "Native American" or "First Peoples."
Hillerman's fiction deals exclusively with Native American cultures located in the Southwest region of the U.S., in particular the Navajo, but also the Hopi, Zuni, and other Pueblo groups. In most cases, Hillerman uses the word Indian when referring to members of these various cultures.
A general term referring to a small hill, mound, or knoll above the ground in any natural environment.
The colloquial name for a genus (Bouteloua) of perennial or annual grasses that grows in clumps or tufts throughout North America and includes such range grasses as: black grama, hairy grama, blue grama, and sideoats grama. The genus Bouteloua was named after Spanish botanists, Claudio and Esteban Boutelou.
Horsefly, also spelled horse fly, is the common name for any of more than 2000 insects from the family Tabanidae. The male horsefly feeds on pollen and nectar while the female horsefly feeds on blood and is a common pest of animals and sometimes humans. These flies range in size from as small as a housefly to as large as a bumblebee and are found all around the world.