The Navajo
A useful, easily read description of Navajo peoples! This case study of the people of Nez Ch'ii—a significant Navajo community and one that still holds to a pastoral herding ecology that has characterized some of the Navajo for at least 250 years—offers the right blend of description and theory. In addition to describing the important themes of this culture (including the importance of females, the inviolability of the individual, the prestige of age, and the reciprocity principle), Downs discusses, in detail, the relationships between the Nez Ch'ii families and their herds as well as their relationship to the dominant culture surrounding them.
Title of related interest from Waveland Press: Simonelli, Crossing Between Worlds: The Navajos of Canyon de Chelly, Second Edition (ISBN 9781577665472).
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