American Indian Culture and Research Journal

American Indian Tribal Religions Series: A Review Essay With Suggestions For Future Research Clara Sue Kidwell Father Berard Haile. Love-Magic and Butterfly People: The Slim Curly Version of the Ajilee and Mothway Myths. American Tribal Religions Series, No.2. Flagstaff: Museum of Northern Arizona Press, 1978. 172 pp. $13.95 Karl W. Luckert. Coyoteway: A Navajo Holyway Healing Ceremonial. Tucson: University of Arizona Press; Flagstaff: Museum of Northern Arizona Press, 1979. 243 pp. $24.95; pap. $13.95 Karl W. Luckert. A Navajo Bringing-Home Ceremony: The Claus Chee Sonny Version of Deerway Ajilee. American Tribal Religions Series, No. 3. Flagstaff: Museum of Northern Arizona Press, 1978. 208 pp. pap. $14.95 Karl W. Luckert. The Navajo Hunter Tradition. Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1975. 239 pp. $10.50; pap. $5.95 Karl W. Luckert. Navajo Mountain and Rainbow Bridge Religion. American Tribal Religions Series, No. 1. Flagstaff: Museum of Northern Arizona Press, 1977. 157 pp. pap. $6.95 Navajo chant practice, with its richly developed symbolism and ceremonialism and its wide-ranging social implications, constitutes one of the great religious systems of the world. The Navajos' origins as a distinctive People, Dine, began in darkness and ignorance in worlds below this, according to their own traditions. Historically, it is known that they appeared as nomads in the Southwest around 1500 A.D., and that their Athabaskan language links them with the Athabaskan speakers of the interior of Alaska. From these very humble beginnings, they have evolved a highly complex system of religious belief and practice that constitutes the basis of the Navajo Way.