Review
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Title: A Navajo Legacy: The Life and Teachings of John Holiday (Volume 251 in the Civilization of the American Indian Series)
Author: John Holiday and Robert S. McPherson
Publisher: University of Oklahoma Press
Genre: Oral History, Ethnography, Folklore, Navajo History
Year Published: 2005; paperback 2011
Number of Pages: 394
Binding: Paperback
ISBN: 978-0-8061-4176-3
Price: $24.95
Reviewed by Laura Bayer for the Association for Mormon Letters
This book presents the life story and teachings of John Holiday, Navajo medicine man, born in Monument Valley in 1919. Robert S. McPherson, the author of numerous volumes devoted to the history and culture of the Navajos, brings to the task a deep understanding of the traditions, a capacity for listening and recording them faithfully, and the ability to preserve the distinctive elements of the original in a translated narrative. For good reason, he has won the trust of his Navajo subjects, their families, and Navajos ranging from “grandmothers and grandfathers who spoke little or no English” to college students and tour guides (18).
McPherson’s “The Journey of Navajo Oshley” (USU Press, 2000) chronicled the life story of a Navajo of the previous generation. Oshley was both a traditional healer (a hand trembler) and a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which he considered compatible “with the stories of the old folk.” When John Holiday “saw the book about Oshley, he thought that he had something to say too.” Holiday determined that he wanted to infuse his life story with considerable detail about his practice – a type of material rarely shared by Native Americans in documents available to outsiders – because of his concern that the Navajo are losing traditional stories and ceremonies. “Many of the elders,” he said, “knew our ancestral legends and stories, but they died and never shared them. Many had sacred songs and prayers that have since vanished. This is why I am sharing with you what I know.” (256)
McPherson, working closely with Holiday, interviewer Baxter Benally, and translator Marilyn Holiday (a distant relative of John), captures Holiday’s distinctive voice as he did earlier with Winston Hurst’s interviews of Oshley. The resulting volume offers the general reader an orientation to Navajo culture and history, while including detailed accounts of sacred places, ceremonies, and beliefs that will be of great interest to specialists and the next generation of Navajo medicine men. It creates a voice that is compelling, even when the content may provoke disagreement among readers who will not necessarily share Holiday’s interpretation of elements of his past such as corporal punishment for children. Holiday describes critical events in Navajo history including sheepherding, the federal livestock reduction program, CCC camps, and World War II. He offers accounts of his experience working in the construction, railroad, uranium, and motion picture industries, as well as his training as a traditional medicine man and his memories of the stories recounted by his elders.
McPherson and his team have been meticulous in recording, transcribing, and organizing these materials; they discuss their methodology at length. McPherson adds scholarly introductions to each section, provides lengthy explanatory notes and commentary, and clarifies chronology and relationships when necessary. The volume includes a map of Holiday’s world and more than fifty contemporary photographs. John Holiday was, his translator remarked, “grateful that there was somebody who cared enough to do this kind of work and share it with others.”(15) Readers will share that gratitude.