Tony Hillerman's The Ghostaway

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Tony Hillerman's The Ghostaway

In a country that is the melting pot for many cultures, it is hard to interact with all of them. Tony Hillerman educates readers about one culture, the Navajos, through his novel, The Ghostway. After a shooting occurs in the quiet Indian reservation, a Navajo police Jim Chee, officer overcomes many obstacles physically, mentally, and spiritually to sort the case out and protect a young girl. He is constantly struggling with his identity, whether or not he should continue living his life as a Navajo or cross over to mainstream “white” life. Although the book’s main plot is about a murder and police investigations, a theme that the book is always making references about is cultural differences and how these mere differences can make things rough on people’s lives.

The Navajo culture is contains a lot of symbolism, filled with many beliefs, rituals, and traditions that are excluded only to Navajos which makes their interactions with the outside difficult. After a death in a Hogan, the Hogan has to be setup in a way to protect the ghost. When Jim Chee first went down to the Hogan he noticed what had happened, “ He could think of just one reason to block a Hogan’s smoke hole.”(18)The Navajo tradition is very spiritual and believes in spirits of the dead, they prepare the Hogan in a way so the spirit can do no harm to anyone so the block the smoke to keep the spirit inside.. Since he was raised not to enter a dead Hogan it stopped him from...

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