Teacher Kathy Eckles Hooker and photographer Helen Lau Running began this project with a question to a student,
“What did you do this weekend?”
The student responded, “I chased prairie dogs, caught them and ate them.”
Hooker’s curiosity led her to learn about the activities of her students: our grandmother made yucca shampoo, we built a corral, we gathered grass for brushes, we ate blood cakes. The authors meet Sam Worker, who demonstrates the art of moccasin making; Ella Deal, who teaches them to prepare the soil for potato planting; and Roberta Blackgoat, who shows them how to make cornmeal patties.
Time Among the Navajo: Traditional Lifeways on the Reservation is the unfolding of the individual stories of people met throughout the Reservation, revealing quiet patterns of life that, for many, appear as smooth and comfortably worn as the handle of a planting tool.