Navajo Sacred Places

Klara Bonsack Kelley is an anthropologist and Harris Francis a Navajo cultural specialist, and this academic book, published by Indiana University Press, documents Navajo sacred geography, drawing on both archival research and direct consultation with Navajo community members and elders about specific culturally significant places. Its strength is that co-authorship pairs outside academic method with an insider cultural specialist's direct knowledge, an approach meant to represent Navajo understanding of these places on its own terms. Its limit is that Navajo sacred geography is understood somewhat differently across different communities, clans and individual knowledge holders, so this book documents the specific consultations and places its authors researched rather than one single official account.