Marietta Wetherill: Life With the Navajo in Chaco Canyon
"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 Navajo 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 Navajo 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 Navajo's 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: Life with the Navajo in Chaco Canyon is based. In Marietta's own words, the book vividly portrays the beauty and tragedy of life with the Navajo in the turn-of-the-century Southwest.

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Marietta Wetherill: Life With the Navajo in Chaco Canyon
"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 Navajo 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 Navajo 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 Navajo's 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: Life with the Navajo in Chaco Canyon is based. In Marietta's own words, the book vividly portrays the beauty and tragedy of life with the Navajo in the turn-of-the-century Southwest.

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Marietta Wetherill: Life With the Navajo in Chaco Canyon

Marietta Wetherill: Life With the Navajo in Chaco Canyon

Marietta Wetherill: Life With the Navajo in Chaco Canyon

Marietta Wetherill: Life With the Navajo in Chaco Canyon

Overview

"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 Navajo 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 Navajo 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 Navajo's 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: Life with the Navajo in Chaco Canyon is based. In Marietta's own words, the book vividly portrays the beauty and tragedy of life with the Navajo in the turn-of-the-century Southwest.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781555664817
Publisher: Bower House
Publication date: 04/26/2021
Edition description: Third Edition
Pages: 254
Product dimensions: 5.90(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.70(d)

About the Author

A native of New Mexico, Kathryn Gabriel Loving has published seven books. These include (under Kathryn Gabriel): Roads to Center Place: A Cultural Atlas to Chaco Canyon and the Anasazi and Gambler Way: Indian Gaming in Mythology, History, and Archaeology in North America, among others.

Table of Contents

Introductory Essay: Sex, Lives, and History Elizabeth Jameson v

Introduction: Checkerboard History of the Four Corners Area 1

1 Her Head is Round 19

2 When My Trail Crossed Geronimo's 25

3 Proposal on the San Juan 39

4 Never Look Your Mother-in-Law in the Eye 58

5 The Princess Mummy and Other Burials 64

6 I Was Kidnapped by the Paiutes 77

7 Cleaning with the Great Spirit 85

8 Mother Nature Has Always Taken Care of Me 96

9 Of Homesteads and Hogans 104

10 Blanket Dynasty Gets Wet 113

11 Hosteen Bí' al Could Read Minds 133

12 Bad Luck to Kill Snakes 139

13 Prayers Take Wing 145

14 Pueblo Bonito Has a Yeibichai 153

15 Death of a Singer 164

16 Origins 176

17 Sixteen Navajos Go to the World's Fair 183

18 Crime and Punishment 192

19 A School for the Navajos 198

20 Navajos Go on the Warpath 209

Epilogue: I Was a Gypsy the Rest of My Life 230

Bibliography and Sources 239

Acknowledgments 242

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