NAVAHOS HAVE FIVE FINGERS [SOLD]

NAVAHOS HAVE FIVE FINGERS

By T. D. Allen

Publisher: University of Oklahoma Press, Norman

Hardback with slip cover, first edition, 1963, 249 pages, good condition

The book title Navaho Have Five Fingers derives from the word in the Navajo language for humans, that is “five fingers.” The authors are Terry and Don Allen and they sign with their initials as T. D. Allen.

For many years, the Allens had been taking brief side excursions into the Navaho Reservation.  They had come to know schoolteachers, missionaries, traders, and Indian Bureau personnel; they had made friends with a few English-speaking Navahos and had learned to love their beautiful savage land; but they longed to get into the heart of the country and make contact with the proud, aloof race that people it.  The opportunity came in 1955, when they were invited to serve simply as caretakers for a temporarily vacated outstation of the well-known Ganado Mission.  This is their story. 

CONTENTS

1.  Don’t Take Any Wooden Indians

2.  “Just Keep the Roof on the Place”

3.  Laughter Is a Language

4.  Medicine Man

5.  Déh, Not Txó

6.  Town Meeting, Reservation Style

7.  Ladies Do Sweat

8.  Lambing Time

9.  The Good Samaritan—Navajo Version

10. Psychosomatics and “Sings”

11. Navahos in Labor

12. Social Events of the Summer Season

13. Small Victories over a Large Economy

14. Full Speed Ahead

15. Snipe Hunt

16. Readin’, Writin’, and Rhythmitic

17. The Day We Traveled a Thousand Years