People of Darkness (1980)

The term for biological relatives, including both men and women.

A personal item that holds sentimental significance and is cherished and kept for emotional reasons, regardless of its utility or monetary value.

Referring to Keres, a dialect cluster spoken by several groups of Pueblo people within what is now New Mexico. The dialect is divided into primary two groups, the Eastern and Western groups. The Eastern group includes Cochiti, San Felipe-Santo Domingo, and Zia-Santa Ana Pueblos. The Western group includes Acoma and Laguna Pueblos. Although each Pueblo speaks its own language, the ability to communicate across the dialects is possible.

These evergreen conifers feature leaves that are like scales rather than the needles associated with pine trees. Junipers are well-adapted to hot, arid environments such as the high desert plains and mountains of the U.S. Southwest due to their extensive root systems. Native Americans, such as the Navajo, have traditionally used juniper to treat a range of maladies, including diabetes. Native Americans have also used juniper berries as a female contraceptive.

Junipers tend to grow and migrate in conjunction with the ebb and flow of pinyon pine stand secession. An over-abundance of junipers encroaching into a stand of pinyon pine indicates long-term drought or other ecosystem disturbances, such as over-grazing. In the U.S., the pinyon-juniper woodland range spans from New Mexico to southeastern California. It extends through the Colorado Plateau, Great Basin, and higher elevations of the Mohave Desert.

Kangaroo rats (Diposomys ordii) are a medium sized rodent with long tails and large back legs, which enable them to jump up to nine feet to escape predators. The kangaroo rat is almost perfectly adapted to life in the desert and can survive without drinking any water. Instead, it extracts the moisture it needs from a diet of seeds. Kangaroo rats have excellent hearing and can even detect the practically silent approach of an owl.

A fictional main character in Toni Hillerman's Navajo mystery novel series. Jim Chee is one of two protagonists, both Navajo Tribal Police officers, invented by Hillerman. The surname Chee is a common Navajo name, and comes from the Navajo "Chii," meaning "red." Jim Chee makes his first appearance in the fourth novel in the series, People of Darkness. Unlike the other detective, Joe Leaphorn, who is more worldly, detached, and skeptical, Chee is deeply connected to his community on the eastern side of the Navajo reservation (also known as the Checkerboard Reservation). He is a firm believer in Native American tradition, and is studying to be a traditional Navajo healer.

Pants made from durable twilled cotton, also known as denim.

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.

The Navajo term hatałii, also spelled yataalii, translates as into English as "singer." Singers are medicine men who perform traditional healing ceremonies and blessing rites intended to protect and cure the body, mind, and spirit. Singers use traditional, sacred practices such as chanting, praying, or herb medicine to call on the ill person, his kin, the singer himself, and divine beings to restore the individual's health in accordance with communal balance and universal harmony. Healing or blessing rituals vary according to the occasion, but singing is the main component in all of them, and there are hundreds of songs that comprise a variety of chants.

There are nearly 100 Navajo chants, originating in Navajo origin mythology, and varying in range and intricacy. They are so nuanced and complex that a singer learns only one or two complete chants over many years of apprenticeship. Healing ceremonies last anywhere from one to nine days and include songs, prayers, talks, dances, sweat baths, and sand paintings.

The anatomical place in the body where two bones meet. A joint can either move or be fused. There are three types of joints. A fibrous joint occurs when two bones are connected by fibrous tissue and does not articulate or bend. The skull is an example of bones connected by fibrous joints. Cartilaginous joints occur when bones are connected by cartilage, which allows limited movement between bones. Examples of cartilaginous joints are the connections between the manubrium, the sternum, and the xyphoid process, the are on the chest where the ribs meet at the breast bone. A synovial joint occurs when bones are not directly connected and are therefore able to articulate through a wide range of positions. This movement is facilitated by the lubricating presence of synovial fluid between bones ends. The bones of the fingers, wrists, shoulders, and knees are all examples of synovial joints.