Listening Woman (1978)

The Creeks were Native American tribal group copmrised of a collection of tribes, primarily the Muskogee. The Creeks were a loose organization, but did form a group based on Muskogee-language-speaking villages, mainly along the Coosa and Tallapoosa Rivers in present day Alabama. It is believed that the Muskogee themselves migrated at some point from the northwest down south. Along with the Cherokees, Choctaws, Chickasaws, and Seminoles, the Creeks were considered by non-Native settlers to be one of the Five Civilized Tribes in the 1800s.

The Chuska Mountain Range runs along the Arizona-New Mexico border and lays within Apache County in Arizona and McKinley and San Juan Counties in New Mexico. The Navajo name for the mountain range is Níłtsą́ Dził, meaning Rainy Mountain, and in Navajo mythology, Chuska Peak is believed to be the head of a male figure called Y’odí Dził, or “Goods of Value Mountain.""

A deep canyon system located in northeastern Arizona, within the Navajo Nation. The red sandstone walls intermittently break into the ledged cliff-dwellings that give the canyon its name. These early sites were abandoned around 1400 CE as part of a mysterious mass disappearance of the peoples who had inhabited cliff dwellings throughout the Southwest. The Navajo began to settle in and around the canyon during the eighteenth century, pushed westward by Spanish settlements along the Rio Grande, and by rising antagonisms with the Comanche and Ute tribes to the north and east. Decades of altercations over control of the area culminated in Kit Carson's brutal pursuit of the United States' Navajo removal policy. In 1864, Carson and his troops brutally forced thousands of Navajos to march in the "Long Walk” from Canyon de Chelley to forced incarceration on a "reservation" at Bosque Redondo. Hundreds, if not thousands, of Navajo died due to starvation, exposure, and illness. In 1868, Canyon de Chelley, Many Ruins Canyon, and other portions of Navajo Country were returned to the Navajo. The canyon was designated a National Monument in 1931 and has remained vital to the Navajo spiritually, agriculturally, and culturally as their home. Many of the “yeiis,” or spiritual beings, are believed to reside within the canyon system.

Now a National Historic Landmark, Fort Sill is a US Army post located in Lawton, OK. Established in 1869, it is the only active fort that remains from the era of the Indian Wars. Originally created as a post to stop tribes from raiding settlements, the fort played an active role during the Red River War (where the Companches, Kiowa, and southern Cheyenne went to war againts the government), during President Grant's Peace Policy, and a sa place of relocation ofr Apaches in 1894. This is also where Geronimo is buried.

In 1896, Utah became the 45th state to join the United States, and Salt Lake City was named its capital. The Great Salt Lake, after which the capital is named, is the largest saltwater lake in the western hemisphere. The state itself was named after the Ute people, and Utah remains home to five distinct Native American Tribes including the Ute, Paiute, Goshute, Navajo, and Shoshone. In 1869, Promontory Point, UT was the site of completion for the first transcontinental railroad. Utah is also one of the four-corner states, including New Mexico, Colorado, and Arizona, which all connect at right angles.

Utah boasts some of the country's best mountain biking trails, hiking, rock climbing, scenery, and skiing. It is also host to a cluster of National Parks, inlcuding Zion National Park, Arches National Park, which features over 2,000 natural rock arches, Bryce Canyon, and many other parks, forests, and recreation areas.

A small community in New Mexico located east of the Chuska Mountains and 60 miles north of Gallup. Its Navajo name "Tó Háálí" means “water flows up,” which references the numerous springs in the area. There is a trading post and a Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) boarding school in the town.

In 1912, Arizona became the 48th and last contiguous state to join the United States. The capital, Phoenix, became one of the fastest growing cities in the country after the invention of air conditioning occurred in the 1950s. Nicknamed the "Grand Canyon State," Arizona is home to Grand Canyon National Park. Bordered by California and Nevada to the west, Utah to the north, New Mexico to the east, and the country of Mexico to the south, Arizona occupies the central portion of the Southwestern region of the United States.

Arizona is also the state with the most land designated to Native American nations. The state is home to 22 distinct tribes, the largest group being the Navajo, whose reservation extends into Utah and New Mexico and contains many of its own attractions including Canyon de Chelly National Monument, Navajo Nation Window Rock Monument & Veterans Memorial Park, Rainbow Natural Bridge, and Chaco Cultural National Historical Park.

The Short Mountain Trading Post is a fictional landmark landmark located in the extremely barren area of Short Mountain Territory, also fictional, east of Tuba City near Black Mesa. The trading post has few customers and has been advertised as for sale for more than 40 years.

A trading post is an establishment where goods can be traded. It is also a social center where news and gossip are exchanged. Trading posts have been associated with American frontier culture since the seventeenth century. Overtime, trading posts developed into a cultural institution, at first funded and backed by empire, later by national interests, and most often by enterprising business men. Trading posts became centralized hubs in a network of exchange that both participated in and circumvented the burgeoning capitalist system that was imported into the Americas along with settler colonialism. Although trading posts were initially intended to provide support to the European traders and trappers who traced their way over the North American continent, Native American groups were also drawn into the posts' exchange network, trading furs, pelts, and even scalps for finished goods such as steel knives, firearms, woven textiles, and food stuffs including alcohol. Although not every post was poorly managed, trading posts earned a nefarious reputation for taking advantage of Native traders by offering poor exchange rates, trading with products that were infected with diseases, and promoting the purchase and use of alcohol. Many trading posts are still in existence and are also preserved as National Historic Sites.

Called Dziłk'i Hózhónii (Mountain Beautiful on Top) in Diné, it is the tallest peak in San Juan County, New Mexico and is sacred to the Navajo. It lies 25 miles southwest of Shiprock on the New Mexico-Arizona state line in the Four Corners region. The Navajo believe this mountain is the feet of Goods of Value Mountain, a male spiritual figure. The Navajo believe that his legs are the Carrizo Mountains, his body is the Chuska Mountains, his head is Chuska Peak, and that Shiprock itself is the pouch or weapon he carries.

The Buffalo Society is a fictional militant group created by Tony Hillerman for his 1978 novel Listening Woman. In the novel, the group is described as breaking away from the American Indian Movement (AIM) in order to engage in more violent activities than those condoned by AIM.