Cultural Reference

Ethnology is one of the subfields of anthropology, which also include archaeological, biological, cultural, linguistic, and social anthropologies. Ethnology involves studying different aspects of culture at comparative and analytical levels. This often involves extensive interpersonal contact such that the researcher becomes immersed within and participatory in the culture under examination. In addtion, extensive and detailed interviews may occur over a series of years, supplemented by the collection of oral histories and the recorded performances of folk and traditional practices such as weaving, music, dance, and ceremony.

The two most common ceremonials in the Navajo religion are the Blessingway (Hózhójí) and the Enemyway (‘Anaaʼjí). While the Blessingway is often sung over individuals to ensure good luck and blessings, the Enemyway is sung in order to protect Navajos from harmful ghosts of slain warriors, or in more contemporary parlance, to protect Navajos from the deleterious effects of non-Native influences. This ceremonial can be used for returning military personnel to rid them of the harmful effects of evil spirits, or chindi, of the slain, as well as the associated harmful effects of modernity both on and off the reservation. Leland Wyman defined the Enemyway as a ritual used to “…exorcise the ghosts of aliens, [which] makes much of war, violence, and ugliness; in fact it belongs in a native category of ceremonials usually translated as Evilway” (1983).

In the Navajo origin story, the Earth Surface People were created by Changing Woman. Later, the Holy People taught them how to live in the Navajo Way. This is how the ways of the people were first learned by the inhabitants of the fourth world, in which the Navajo now live.

Some accounts note that when some of the Holy People became exposed to death, they became the Earth Surface People.

The temporary state of a person's physical and mental functions being impaired by the over-consumption of alcoholic beverages.

The history of alcohol use by Native Americans is a long and tortured one. Alcohol was introduced to many North American tribes by European settlers in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, first as an item of trade and later as a substance that was intended to deliberately interfere with the groups’ traditional way of life. Alcohol has been and continues to be extensively "abused" by Native Americans on and off reservations, and the reasons for this abuse are many, and include problems of social, political, and financial nature. None of these reasons, however, can nor should be linked to a supposed indigenous or cultural predilection toward drunkenness. Instead, the effects of poverty, isolation, and lack of educational and other resources are the stimuli that engender alcohol abuse in Native American populations.

In his Navajo detective novels, Tony Hillerman notes both the beauty and the darkness he saw in the Southwest. Substance abuse, physical violence, greed, and crime were examples of the darkness he found; expressions of individual and cultural imbalances whose root causes he depicts as originating in modern U.S. society, rather than as organic to Native communities.

Removing the blood and internal organs of an animal in order to best preserve its meat until it can be further processed.

An anachronisitic reference to an individual who uses mind-altering substances recreationally.

"Dope" itself is slang for marijuana, so a doper often, but not exclusively, refers to one who smokes marijuana on a regular basis. Depending upon the context, dope can also refer to heroin. Finally, in more contemporary usage, if something is "dope," then it is good, cool, awesome.

An often strict, conservative set of rules, beliefs, or even cultural practices that are intended to be disseminated and accepted as truth. In many cases, a sense of ethics, or moral and philosphical weight, inheres within dogmatic practices and their associated core beliefs, often functioning as structural ideologies.

In this context, dog skin refers to a Navajo Wolf, a witch that dresses in the skin of a wolf. The Navajo Wolf can also read others' minds, control minds, bring forth disease, destroy homes, and even cause death.

An academic status also known as "all but dissertation," or ABD. The doctoral candidate has completed all coursework, comprehensive examinations, and oral defenses required to advance to doctoral candidacy. When a student reaches doctoral candidacy status, all that remains between that student and a Ph.D. is the additional research and subsequent writing necessary to complete the doctoral dissertation.

To skip, avoid, leave, or refuse to participate in an event or activity. One can ditch school or one's acquaintances by leaving them behind or by never showing up to begin with.

In this sense, ditch can also mean leaving something behind.