American Indian Culture and Research Journal

INTRODUCTION This article is a review and synthesis of materials on Navajo games, with an annotated bibliography of those materials. Because this work addresses two different but not incompatible audiences-Navajo scholars and game scholars-I have not attempted to clarify game terms and issues for Navajo scholars, and vice versa. Readers wishing more background on either subject should consult appropriate works. These materials contribute to our understanding of Navajos, games, and scholarship. First, this work reveals that there is more information on Navajo games than one might initially expect. In addition, it provides background information for further research on both Navajos and games. The information presented here challenges Western perceptions of games and playing. It reveals the interrelationship between games and other aspects of Navajo culture. Finally, it demonstrates that one can gain a great deal of information from unscholarly, generalized resources. Of the 329 works considered for this paper, 163 are included, regardless of whether documenting or describing games was the authors’ primary interest. While this evaluation is not definitive, I have personally reviewed all of the works cited. In the introduction, I provide information essential for understanding the subsequent discussions, first on the relationship between games and religion (p. 5), then on the nature of games and gaming (p. 15), followed by descriptions of specific games, toys, and play activities (p. 31); I end the discussion with a summary and suggestions for future scholarship (p. 41). The essay concludes with notes (p. 44) and an annotated bibliography (p. 63).

Numerous superlatives could be used to describe Michael Dorrids most recent book, The Broken Cord, released in July of 1989. Dedicated to both his wife, Louise Erdrich, and "our brave son," who, he acknowledges, is "its true and ongoing creator," the work painfully but powerfully chronicles almost eighteen years of struggle with Fetal Alcohol Syndrome (FAS), the affliction that burdens Adam, whom he adopted at age three. Always, Dorris reluctantly concludes in the final paragraph of his heart-rending analysis, Adam will remain "a drowning man" for whom "there is no shore." In a provocative article appearing below one of the many favorable reviews that The Broken Cord has received, poet and novelist Jay Parini asserts that "serious writers who write a lot of books and who experiment with different kinds of writing will suffer for it. The critics won't keep up with them. Their books will be reviewed in isolation from previous works. . . ." Parini's wisdom is striking, for in the accompanying review, there is not a single mention of A Yellow Raft in Blue Water, Dorris's novel of two years earlier. Despite her familiarity with The Broken Cordor, perhaps, because of it-reviewer Patricia Guthrie elects a focus and parameters that preclude even the briefest mention of Dorris’s first novel, or of any of the other penetrating writings he has produced during the last two decades. Apparently, a compelling work can rivet a reviewer or critic to just that work; its power is simultaneously bondage, nullifying the possibility of comparisons, contrasts, and linkages.