The Book of the Navajo

Description

The Handbook of North American Indians provides comprehensive ethnographic coverage of the Dene or Navajo with only a generalized history.
BOOK OF THE NAVAJO extends the history with important details.
In introductory chapters, Locke gives us an overview of parts of Dene culture and society so we have an undestanding of their way of life before taking up their history. Locke starts with a prehisoric background drawing on the archaeological record then showing Dene linguitic relationships extending fron Alaska to the Northwest Coast.
In short, he offers an excellent overview before beginning Dene history with an in-depth review of Pueblo and Spanish contacts.
I found his chapters on conflict with the Spanish and their taking of captives vital for my historical novel about Dene slavery. I had to coninue reading into the mid-nineteenth century because his coverage of the American arrival is riveting as is his description of the Long Walk beginning in 1864.
His concluding chapters on post-Long Walk developments are also welcome although these times are described at length in other works.
But, despite numerous studies of the dispute between Hopi and Dene, Locke’s account of its effects on a Dene family drew me into the conflict like no other writing.
ernestschusky.com