Cultural Reference

An academic field that is dedicated to the study of the history, geography, literature, politics, and culture of indigenous people in the Americas, with a particular emphasis on contemporary issues of identity and sovereignty. Native American studies grew out of the American Indian Movement of the 1960s, which, along with the broader Civil Rights Movement, protested racial discrimination, dispossession, and forced assimilation. In the 1970s, the first meeting of American Indian scholars at Princeton University set the formal parameters for the new academic field, focusing on indigenous rights and centering traditional knowledge grounded in oral history and Native philosophy.

Formed in 1918 as a Pan-Indian movement and in response to government abuses and relocations, the Native American Church synthesized Christian beliefs with the sacramental use of peyote, a small, spineless cactus that grows primarily in Texas and Mexico. Although using peyote for ceremonial purposes occurred in many tribes prior to the organzation of the Church, the Native American Church is the first, large organized ceremonial establishment to occur across tribal differences. The Church still exists today despite U.S. legal objection to the use of peyote, which is classified as an illegal drug.

Services usually take place on weekends, but there is no set schedule. Some groups hold ceremonies monthly while others are more spontaneous. Peyote is psychoactive and so members often have visions, but it is the community experience of these effects that gives the ceremony spiritual power.

One way to refer to the various indigenous peoples of the Americas, especially those who reside on and off reservations in the U.S.. Pueblos indigenas, Aborigen, Amerindian, and Aboriginal peoples are also terms found in usage to refer to those groups indigenous to the Americas. Native Americans largely prefer to be referred to by their specific tribal name, however.

Hillerman's fiction deals exclusively with Native American cultures located in the Southwest region of the U.S., especially 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, only rarely writing "Native American." Believing, or hoping, that they had stumbled upon 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 connundrum that persists in the Americas through to the present.

Also called a medicine bundle, a medicine pouch is a traditional Native American container for various items that have totemic, spiritual, or supernatural power. The Navajo word for medicine pouch is jish, which is not only a container for ceremonial goods but also describes the ceremonial goods themselves. Medicine pouches often contain pollen, which is used in rituals and chants.

In general usage, the noun "mystic" refers to an individual whose introspection and resulting intuition manifests as a predilection for the spiritual, the contemplative, and maybe even the mysterious…because those in contact with the mystic may not be aware of or able to understand the mystic's sensitivities to etheral, otherworldly, or occult stimuli. In many traditions, the mystic is a respected individual who is in contact with spiritual advisors and who is therefore able to function as a wise person, a healer, or an oracle.

The meat from a mature sheep. Mutton stew and roast mutton are today main staples of the Navajo diet. Sheep were introduced into the Americas by the Spanish in the sixteenth century, along with horses and cattle. During this time the Navajo traded and raided for sheep from the Spanish. Sheep became a major part of their economy, and, also, their diet.

Founded in 1937 by Mary Cabot Wheelwright, a wealthy Bostonian, in collaboration with Hosteen Klah, a Navajo singer or hataalii, the museum's purpose was to preserve Navajo religion, oral tradition, and culture. It was called the Navajo House of Prayer and House of Navajo religion before being named the Museum of Navajo Ceremonial Art prior to its public opening.

Due to several factors, including the Navajo Nation's declaration of independence, the development of the Medicine Men's Association, and the expansion of the Navajo Nation's own colleges and museums, the Museum of Navajo Ceremonial Art repatriated medicine bundles and sand paintings, donated artworks to the Navajo Nation's cultural repositories, and in 1977 changed its name to the Wheelwright Museum of the American Indian, as it is still known today.

In several Pueblo traditions, the Mudhead Clown is a masked figure who works as disciplinarian, joker, and village cryer. The early Hopi variation of this figure is called Tachukti, meaning “Ball-On-Head”; however, around 1860 the Zuni variation, known as Koyemsi or Koyemshi, rose to prominence in cultural studies of the western Pueblos. The anglicized term "Mudhead Clown" derives from the appearance of the Koyemsi mask, which is covered with loosely-formed mud balls that form vaguely human-like features. Mudhead Clowns can be garbed in a black dress with a red or brown-clay painted body.

According to the Zuni origin legends, the father or head Koyemsi incestuously produced nine children with his sister. In his remorse for this heinous act the father beat himself and rolled in the mud until his head was covered in bulbous welts coated in mud. Upon their birth, the children of this union resembled their father, appearing with faces and bodies disorted by various mud-covered protuberances. The incestuous nature of their conception bars the Koyemsi from becoming kachinas themselves. Instead, they act in secondary roles, such as spokespersons for the other kachinas. While neither a priest nor ceremonial dancer, the Mudhead Clown is a part of many social gatherings, performing as curers, directors, warriors, messengers, sages, and tricksters.

At the end of Hillerman's 1973 re-telling of the Zuni origin story The Boy who made Dragon Fly, when the wise boy claims that some day his little sister will become the Mother of Seed, he is suggesting that she will be considered the spiritual mother of the Zuni, who sometimes refer to themselves as "seed," or corn kernels.

A reference to the character of Othello in Shakespeare's tragedy of the same name. Othello, who was referred to as "the Moor of Venice" in the play, was a black general tormented by racial insecurities who eventually murdered his white wife, Desdemona, in a fit of jealous rage.

A historically anachronistic reference from the medieval period, the word Moor typically refers to North Africans who invaded the Iberian Peninsula in the eighth century as the vanguard of the Islamic Empire. The Moors were expelled by force from Spain by the Catholic queen Isabella in 1492.