The Blessing Way (Leaphorn & Chee #1)

by Tony Hillerman

The white man sees the desolation and calls it a desert, McKee thought, but the Navajo name for it means “Beautiful Valley.”

the Navajo Way was the Middle Way, which avoided all excesses—even of happiness. The shower at midnight and the smell of the earth and the beauty of the morning had been enough.

You know how it is with the Dinee. The only name that really counts is the war name you get when you’re little. And that one’s a secret inside your family and it’s only used in your Blessing Way ceremonial or if you get somebody to sing you a cure.”

Sandoval would be singing the old chants, the old songs to the Holy People—not prayers of humility or supplication, and not pleas for forgiveness, but songs which sought nothing but to restore man’s harmony with all that was elemental.

It was faded now and partly missing where chips of plaster had fallen away. A roundish outline with a topknot, long ears, and a collar. The figure was unquestionably a Hopi Kachina—either the Dung Carrier or the Mud Head Clown.

were two more stylized outlines. From the Hopi mythology McKee recognized Chowilawu, the spirit of Terrible Power, with four black-tipped feathers rising vertically from his squarish head and a horizontal band of red blinding his eyes. The third head had been almost erased by flaking. Only the dim outline of a protruding ear and the double vertical cheek stripes signifying a warrior spirit remained. Down the wall there were other markings—the zigzag of lightning, bird tracks, the stair-stepped triangles of clouds, and a row of phallic symbols. Undoubtedly, one of the Hopi clans had used this as a ceremonial kiva.