Dance Hall of the Dead

rdf:langString Dance Hall of the Dead

rdf:langString Dance Hall of the Dead

rdf:langString Dance Hall of the Dead

rdf:langString First edition

rdf:langString USA

rdf:langString Listening Woman, 1978

rdf:langString English

rdf:langString Print and audio

rdf:langString The Blessing Way, 1970

rdf:langString Jim Chee/Joe Leaphorn Navajo Tribal Police Series

rdf:langString Dance Hall Of The Dead is the second crime fiction novel in the Joe Leaphorn / Jim Chee Navajo Tribal Police series by Tony Hillerman, first published in 1973. It features police Lieutenant Joe Leaphorn. It is set primarily in Ramah Reservation (part of the Navajo Reservation) and the Zuni village in New Mexico, both in the American Southwest. Two boys are missing from the Zuni school. One boy is a Navajo, so Lieutenant Joe Leaphorn is called in to find him while the Zuni police seek the other boy. The Zuni boy's body is found, brutally murdered. Tracks of the other boy are found at the scene. This Navajo boy is a well-trained hunter who has to skip school some days to hunt to feed himself, his father and his brother. He seeks spiritual guidance, as well, being the only Navajo boy in his class at school. He is a challenge for Leaphorn, the most skilled tracker, to find, especially once he realizes who the killer is, and the search moves to a major Zuni ceremony. The story contrasts Zuni and Navajo beliefs through the two boys and the two policemen. The Zuni believe in something like heaven after death, where the Navajo encourage the people to do their best on earth, as their chindi, the worst of a person, will be a ghost left behind after death. The two tribes reside in the same area for hundreds of years, yet use the land differently, Zunis preferring a town while Navajos spread out over the land, and have sharply contrasted beliefs as to the after life. This is played out in the bellagana culture, with ambitious anthropologists, the drug trade, the FBI, and narcotics officers.