sacred clowns

[Character Analysis]

Some Terms Used• “Little Father” – a trusted uncle in a very sacred relationship.

•Kachina – Tanoans who are the link to the world beyond in a Tano Ceremonial.

•Koshare – Sacred Clown in a Tano Ceremonial.

•DNA – Dinebeiina Nahiilna be Agadithe

“People who talk fast to help people out”

CharactersMain Characters:

• Jim Chee – Navajo Tribal Policeman & Hataalii• Joe Leaphorn – Navajo Tribal Policeman (Chee’s boss)

CharactersMain Characters:

• Jim Chee – Navajo Tribal Policeman & Hataalii• Joe Leaphorn – Navajo Tribal Policeman (Chee’s boss)

Important Secondary Characters:• Janet Pete – Defense Attorney (DNA)• Harold Blizzard – BIA Officer• Dilly Streib – Police Officer • Asher Davis – ‘Honest” seller of artifacts & collectables• Roger Applebee – Nature First Lobbyist• Delmar Kanitewa – Grandson of a Council-woman

ConflictsPolicing Conflicts:

• Eric Dorsey Murder• Hit & Run with no evidence left behind• Koshare Murder • Finding the Kanitewa boy

ConflictsPolicing Conflicts:

• Eric Dorsey Murder• Hit & Run with no evidence left behind• Koshare Murder • Finding the Kanitewa boy

Other Conflicts:• Jim Chee & Janet Pete • Joe Leaphorn & Louisa Bourbonette going to China• Can Jim Chee be an officer & hataalii at the same time?

Plot overview

Leiutenant Leaphorn and his assistant Jim Chee are working backwards in a police investigation,trying to find the link between the murder of the school teacher (Dorsey), the hit-and-run case (Todashin), and the murder of the Koshare.

Plot overview “True, he had only been second man in the two-man Special Investigations Office for three days… They should be investigating Continental Collectors, and Tribal Councilman Jimmy Chester, and those people in the Bureau of Land Management, and the whole conspiracy to make the Checkerboard Reservation a national garbage pit. That’s what he should be doing—not chasing after a runaway schoolboy who wasn’t even a Navajo. Or was just barely a Navajo. And Hunting him just because his grandmother was a big shot on the Navajo Tribal Council.” (pg 9)

Jim Chee

Jim Chee+ Good looking+ Young+ Smart

Jim Chee+ Good looking+ Young+ Smart+ Good memory, as trained through his Navajo background.+ Forgets to follow police-rules (i.e. taking leave w/o notice).+ Determined in nature.

Jim Chee+ Good looking+ Young+ Smart+ Good memory, as trained through his Navajo background.+ Forgets to follow police-rules (i.e. taking leave w/o notice).+ Determined in nature.+ Relatively traditional.+ Wants to marry Janet, but is afraid their relationship is taboo.

Chee’s Navajo Ways

+ Follows the Beauty Way.The belief system; keeping in harmony withnature in order to keep harmony among people.

Chee’s Navajo Ways

+ Follows the Beauty Way.The belief system; keeping in harmony withnature in order to keep harmony among people.

+ Wants to be Hataalii.Singer/medicine man. Shaman of the highest order.

Chee’s Navajo Ways

+ Hozho“I’ll use an example. Terrible

drought, crops dead, sheep dying. Spring dried out. No water. The Hopi, or the Christian, maybe the Moslem, they pray for rain. The Navajo has the proper ceremony done to restore himself to harmony with the drought… The system is designed to recognize what’s beyond human power to change, and then to change the human’s attitude to be content with the inevitable.”

- Chee (pg 319)

Chee’s Navajo Ways

+ Hozho “So I think the concept of hozho

means you adjust the ceremonial system like you adjust everything else. You keep it in harmony with the inevitable… Well, that’s why we Navajos have endured. Survivied with our culture alive. This philosophy of hozho kept us alive.”

Chee’s Navajo Ways

+ Hozho “And some of the shamans I know,

mostly the younger ones, they split a long ceremony over two weekends, so working people can take part. That’s the way I’d do it. And Hosteen Nakai knows it, and it’s poison to him, and the other two. They say done that way, the ceremony does more harm than good.”

- Chee (pg 320)

Applicable Concepts

Multiple Identities (Chee, Janet, Blizzard)

Emic/Etic views (pg 131-132 landscape, Ch. 11 movie)

Boarding schools + Code Switching (KNDN Radio station pg 198 & 228)

I recommend it!

Good cop-story.

Interesting cultural setting.

A smart read.