Author Hillerman became hero to Navajos 6 commentsby John Faherty and Shaun McKinnon - Oct. 28, 2008 12:00 AM The Arizona Republic
Iconic characters Jim Chee and Joe Leaphorn could only come from the mind of a person with a love for the American Southwest and an appreciation for Navajo culture. Tony Hillerman, the best-selling author of Navajo Tribal Police mystery novels, had both. Hillerman, 83, died Sunday in Albuquerque of pulmonary failure. He said he loved getting good reviews but, "I am far more delighted by being voted the most popular author by the students of St. Catherine Indian School." Even better, Hillerman said, was hearing from "middle-aged Navajos who tell me that reading my mysteries revived their children's interest in the Navajo way." Hillerman poured his knowledge of Navajos and their land into his novels. He introduced many readers across the country to the ways, both mysterious and mundane, of those who live on the reservation. He learned some of his information from observation, and some from endless conversations with people he met in his travels on the reservation. "The people spilled their guts to him," said James Peshlakai, who is portrayed in one of Hillerman's books. "The elders, they told him stories about things their own children never asked about." Hillerman's work earned him literary awards and devoted fans. "Tony Hillerman's place alongside such great mystery writers as Agatha Christie and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle is certain," Christian Science Monitor book editor Jim Bencivenga wrote in 1997. Author of 18 novels Hillerman wrote 18 novels set on the reservation, starting with The Blessing Way in 1970. The motivation for that book came from Hillerman's first experience on the Navajo Reservation decades earlier. It happened near Crown Point, N.M., when Hillerman, a World War II veteran, attended a Navajo curing ceremony for tribal members coming home from the war. The ceremony impressed him so much that it shaped his decision to set his first novel on the reservation. Hillerman's books - Skinwalkers, The Thief of Time and The Coyote Waits, among others - were written in the straightforward language of a former journalist. The author grew up in Oklahoma, but after serving in the war, where he was badly injured, he began moving around the Southwest as a reporter. His work eventually led him to New Mexico, where he worked in Santa Fe as bureau manager for United Press International and as executive editor of the Santa Fe New Mexican. Chee and Leaphorn were perfect characters to showcase Hillerman's vision of the Navajo struggle between the old and new. Leaphorn, an older tribal officer, was cynical but respectful of the traditional beliefs on the reservation. Chee, a younger man, studied to become a hathaali, the Navajo equivalent of a shaman. Their dueling perspectives influenced how they approached their police work, with Leaphorn usually focusing on more earthly motivations and Chee focusing on the spiritual. "I want Americans to stop thinking of Navajos as primitive persons, to understand that they are sophisticated and complicated," Hillerman once said. Hero among Navajos Hillerman became a hero of sorts among the Navajos, but he downplayed his notoriety and talked instead about the respect he and the Navajo people shared for each other. Hillerman returned the blessings he received from Navajos by donating money for a water-delivery program at St. Bonaventure Indian Mission and School in Thoreau, N.M.; to the Little Sisters of the Poor in Gallup, N.M.; and to put up lights at a football stadium in Monument Valley, Utah. Hillerman's love for the land of the vast Navajo Reservation is evident in a paragraph he wrote for The Republic in 2000, on the subject of clouds. "On an August afternoon when the monsoons have started bringing in moisture from the Sea of Cortez, park somewhere atop Second Mesa with a panoramic view. To your right the westerly wind is pushing this warm moist air up the slopes of the San Francisco Peaks, where the forming mist quickly becomes a cloud, and is pushed eastward over the Painted Desert to grow, and climb, and begin trailing a thin gray curtain of virga and finally a heavy black wall of rain. And this cloud is followed by another, and another, because these mountains are the mother of clouds." Republic reporter Connie Midey and the Associated Press contributed to this report. -- "I not only use all the brains that I have, but all that I can borrow." Woodrow Wilson ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| Adobe® ColdFusion® 8 software 8 is the most important and dramatic release to date Get the Free Trial http://ad.doubleclick.net/clk;207172674;29440083;f Archive: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-community/message.cfm/messageid:277322 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-community/subscribe.cfm Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/unsubscribe.cfm?user=89.70.5
