People of Darkness (1980)

The Checkerboard area of the Navajo Nation extends over the eastern part of the reservation, across McKinley, San Juan, and Cibola counties in New Mexico. Beginning with the Dawes Act of 1887, Native Americans, including the Navajo, were assigned plots of reservation land on which to practice subsistence farming. This was an attempt to assimilate Native Americans into Western European land use and domestication practices. Later, pieces of land were granted to the Santa Fe Railroad in the late 1800s, and other tracts were sold to individual non-Native owners. Checkerboarding expanded when Native reservations expanded into lands that were previously sold to or appropriated by non-Native parties.

The checkerboard mix of lands owned by tribes, trust lands, fee lands, and privately-owned tracts severely impedes on the Navajo nation's ability to farm, ranch, or utilize the land for other economic purposes. Problems of mixed jurisdiction (tribal, federal, state, or county) have also contributed to economic instability, as well as to racial tensions and community conflicts. For many years, changing legal jurisdictions meant that law enforcement was extremely difficult on the Checkerboard Reservation. In the early 1980s, however, the Navajo Nation entered a Joint Power Agreement with the State of New Mexico, giving each entity authority to enforce law within the other's jurisdiction. The agreement has enabled much more effective law enforcement procedures.

Also known as Douglas fir, this tree is the largest of the evergreens native to New Mexico and Arizona. It is a major source of timber is widely distributed in mountainous habitats of between 5, 000-10,000 feet. Firs grow in groves of their own as well as in mixed areas of ponderosa pines, spruces, and other high-elevation trees. Native Americans in the Southwest have used the branches, cones, and berries of firs for various ceremonial and healing purposes, and today it is also the preferred Christmas tree in the region.

Thoreau, pronounced "through" in English, is a small community located just north of Interstate 40, about 30 miles east of Gallup, New Mexico. The Navajo name for the village is Dlǫ́ʼí Yázhí meaning "Little Prairie Dogs." The town grew around a sawmill that was built there in 1881, with the arrival of the Atlantic and Pacific Railroads. After the closing of the sawmill in 1890, the village was a trading center for Navajo rugs, crafts, and jewelry. When Highway 66 (now Interstate 40) was rerouted in 1937 it no longer passed through the town and trading declined significantly. Mining, especially of uranium, became the main source of the town’s livelihood until the 1980s, when mining companies in the area ceased their operations. A number of schools are located in the town including the Thoreau Elementary, Middle, and High schools; a Bureau of Indian Affairs boarding school; and the Saint Bonaventure Catholic School.

In Navajo, Diné means "the People." Eminently adaptable, the Diné learn from their neighbors and have incorporated elements from Pueblo, Hispanic, and even Anglo cultures into their lifeways, developing a traditional way of life that is fluid and dynamic but also deeply affected by their respect for custom and tradition. This is intimately tied to their belief that the physical and spiritual worlds blend together and that everything on earth is alive and related. This is called hózhǫ́, the state in which all living things are ordered, in balance, and walking in beauty. The opposite of hózhǫ́ is hóchxǫ́ǫ́, which refers to disorder and chaos in one’s life.

Every Southwestern Pueblo society has slightly different ceremonial practices, yet each Pueblo maintains a variety of priesthoods that perform ceremonies in kivas and plazas. These priesthoods are also known as secret or kiva societies. Each society has a different obligation it fulfills for the benefit of the Pueblo at large, including farming, healing, and even warrior duties. Boys between the ages of five to fourteen, depending on the Pueblo, are initiated into a society, and members of the kiva societies act as their sponsors as they learn the duties, rites, dances, and ceremonials associated with their kiva.

The term generally refers to people of Anglo-Saxon descent, especially in the Americas, Australia, and New Zealand. However, in the Southwestern parts of the United States, "Anglo" is often used synonymously with "white" to indicate any persons who are not of Native or Hispanic origin. In the context of the history of the Southwest, the term has strong political and colonial connotations, as Anglos--or white Americans--were the most recent arrivals to the region and brought with them a dominant new order, under-girded by Manifest Destiny and the politics of racial and class difference inherent within colonialism, that in many cases severely infringed on the rights, livelihood, and traditions of Native Americans and Hispanic populations who had resided in the area for centuries.

At the uranium mine in Church Rock, NM, Section 17 was a site where large reserves of uranium deposits were discovered in the late 1950s. The area was mined heavily in the 1960s and 1970s, and in 1979 Section 17 was at the center of a devastating spill that sent over 1,000 tons of radioactive waste and 93 million gallons of tailing solution into the Rio Puerco River. The Church Rock Mill, which was operated by United Nuclear Corporations, was constructed on private land, but as a result of the spill uranium contaminants were carried downstream about 80 miles into the Navajo Reservation, severely affecting residents who relied on the river for irrigation and watering livestock. It wasn't until much later that serious cleanup operations were implemented, and to this day there is much concern regarding the area's leftover radiation.

A pipe or a cement structure designed to let water flow under a road. Such structures can be either embedded in the ground under the road, or protrude up, forming a raised ramp in the road. Some culverts are so large that one can walk or even drive a vehicle through them when they are empty.

One of the spirit guardian creatures of the Navajo people, Big Snake is a mythological creature associated with sacred sand paintings as well as healing ceremonies. According to some versions of the Navajo creation account, First Man and First Woman, after creating the sacred mountains of Dinétah (the Navajo homeland), sent Big Snake to guard the turquoise of Tsoodzil (Turquoise Mountain), or what is known today as Mount Taylor, located just northeast of present day Grants, NM.

According to the Navajo creation myth, First Man and First Woman created the four sacred mountains surrounding Dinétah, the Navajo homeland. One of these mountains is Tsoodzil, or Turquoise Mountain (what is known today as Mount Taylor), located just northeast of present day Grants, New Mexico. After First Man and First Woman formed this mountain, whose symbolic color is blue, various creatures and plants, such as blue birds and blue corn, were sent to live in it. Spiritual beings in human form, such as Turquoise Boy and Girl, were also sent to reside in the mountain. Turquoise Girl, the daughter of Changing Woman, is associated with guarding the mountain's turquoise as well as with the cultivation of corn. In some songs and legends she may appear as White Shell Girl, and the two figures are often used interchangeably.