Marietta Wetherill
Subtitle: reflections on life with the Navajo in Chaco Canyon
By: edited and compiled by Kathryn Gabriel ; introductory essay by Elizabeth Jameson.
Contributors: Gabriel, Kathryn.
Publisher: Johnson Books
Published: 1992
Place of publication: Boulder, CO
Language: eng
Number of pages: 241
Subjects: Wetherill, Marietta, 1876-1954.; Indianists -- New Mexico -- Chaco Canyon -- Biography.; Folklorists -- New Mexico -- Chaco Canyon -- Biography.; Navajo Indians -- Social life and customs.
Description: "Your head is round, not flat like ours," a Navajo told Marietta Palmer Wetherill. "You will remember and tell our story to the white man." In the years after she moved to Chaco Canyon in 1897 with her husband, Richard, Marietta Wetherill got to know the Navajos probably as intimately as a white person could. When her husband was murdered by a Navajo in 1910 in the midst of an interracial conflict, Marietta was spared because the Navajos considered her one of them rather.

than white. While Richard, who had previously discovered the Cliff Palace Ruins at Mesa Verde, was excavating at Chaco Canyon, Marietta ran their trading post and learned the Navajo ways. She became close friends with a singer, Hosteen Bi'al, who adopted her into the Chee clan. At his side, she learned the secrets of sand painting and curing dances, doctored the Navajos' illnesses, and served as a midwife. She observed the harsh code of Navajo ethics and even witnessed.

the execution of a bewitched singer. In 1953, a year before her death, Marietta Wetherill told the story of her life to a newspaper reporter who recorded it on seventy-five reels of tape, bequeathing a priceless historical treasure to the future. It is on the transcripts of these tapes that Marietta Wetherill: Reflections on Life with the Navajos in Chaco Canyon is based. In Marietta's own words, the book vividly portrays the beauty and tragedy of life with the Navajos.

in the turn-of-the-century Southwest.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. [239]-241).