Gladys Reichard at the Frontiers of Navajo Culture

Anomalous Aerial Phenomena, Abductions, and Mysterious Technologies in Ancient Greece

“…For centuries, these accounts have been branded as folklore and belong to the domain of the supernatural and the paranormal, but in recent years, their frequency and impact on the local populations have forced the authorities to investigate them, in collaboration with the native communities. Various researchers associated with The Navajo Nation, the independent government body that manages the Navajo reservation and maintains the records of the Navajo tribe, reports a history of documented cases 9 (Lyon, 2000).…”

Genre, Methodology and Feminist Practice

“…I posit that shifts in style and voice from one work to the next indicate a scholar struggling to forge a place, though not necessarily a voice, for herself at a particular moment in the history of anthropology. Others have written on the topic of Reichard and the gendered politics of anthropology (Lamphere, 1992;Lyon, 1989: 3). I will refer to those debates to the extent that they can inform and be informed by a reading of Reichard as a woman writing culture.…”

“…The split between Spider Woman (1934) and Navajo Shepherd and Weaver (1936) points to the tensions, noted by Visweswaran (1988: 32), of a subjective/objective dichotomy prevalent in the writing of ethnography and centered in issues of credibility and gendered definitions of 'scholarly work'. Indeed, Spider Woman is often called an 'autobiographical account' (Lyon, 1989: 138) or a set of 'well-digested field notes, a sort of personal account of the trials of learning to weave interspersed with descriptions of family activitiesthe summer sheep dip, a trip to the Gallup Ceremonials, a tornado, a sing, and even sadly the death of Maria Antonia...' (Lamphere, 1992:93). Indeed, the relationship between autobiography and ethnology is at the core of a feminist reading of Reichard's narratives.…”

“…In this section she relates the successes of her (actual) Hogan School, in which she taught Navajo translators to write and read in their own language. I read this as a critique of boarding schools and a testimony to the success of her own adult school, which was shut down through academic and reservation politics (Lyon, 1989).…”

“…Lamphere provides a rich and indispensable account of Reichard's life and works. For a detailed evaluation of Reichard's relationship with other scholars of the Southwest, see Lyon (1989).…”