Article
A word that can be substituted for witchcraft, witching, sorcery, or magic, used by Tony Hillerman to refer to the work of people known in some Native American traditions as witches. It is useful to keep in mind that "witch" is a word imposed on some aspects of indigenous cultural traditions by anthropologists, who did not have the knowledge to understand or the language to describe what they witnessed in these traditions. In Hillerman's Navajo detective novels, witches are believed to cause imbalances associated with greed, violence, and other maladies associated with modernity.
"Witches add ingredients to a cauldron. Woodcut, circa 1489" by Unknown is licensed under Public Domain.
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References
Frisbie, Charlotte J.
1987 Navajo Medicine Bundles or Jish: Acquisition, Transmission, and Disposition in the Past and Present. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press.
Hirschfelder, Arlene and Paulette Molin
2000 Encyclopedia of Native American Religions. New York: Checkmark Books.
Kulckhohn, Clyde and Dorothea Leighton
1946 The Navaho. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.