Dance Hall of The Dead

Dance Hall of the Dead
Tony Hillermans Dance Hall of the Dead is a novel in a popular mystery series; however
the mystery isnt as complex as one might have thought. Yet this novel, as well as the series, is
quite popular despite its simplicity. There are many reasons this could be, two possible reasons
could be because Hillerman gives such a vivid picture of the Navajo and Zuni cultures and
respective religions.
From the very beginning the reader is exposed to the religion of the Zuni people. The
reader is immediately introduced to one of the murder victims, not by his given name but by the
Zuni spirit he will personify during a Zuni ritual welcoming of the Shalako: Shulawitsi, the
Little Fire God, member of the Counsel of the Gods and deputy to the Sun, had taped his track
shoes to his feet. In two days he led Longhorn and the council from the ancestral village to
Zuni. And when Shalako came he would be ready to dance all the night without an error. And
the Salamobia would never have to punish him (7). Even during the murder of Shulawitzi,
whom the reader comes to know as Ernesto Cata, is shrouded in the Zuni religion: It was a
Salamobia, its round yellow-circled eyes staring at him. This was the Salamobia of the mole
kiva, its masked painted the color of darkness (9). In the murder of Shorty Bowlegs, the Navajo
religion is brought in: staring at the dark humped shape of the Hogan, aware of the shrieking
curses of the wind, of the evil ghosts of a thousand generations of Dinee who rode the night
(76). Later that night Leaphorn realizes how hard the death of Shorty Bowlegs will be: this
would be [a] complicated death. No relatives to arrange of disposal of the body, to break
a hole into a wall to release Shortys ghost for its infinite wandering, to nail shut the door as
a warning and to arrange a Sing to cure any of those touched or endangered by this
death (81). These two religions, so different are bought in to emphasize each other and play up
the differences between them to captivate the reader and show them the two distinct cultures.
In the hunt for George Bowlegs Leaphorn visits a priest, Father Ingels, who tells him a bit
about the Zuni religion. The priest recounts a Zuni myth. The Zuni people had come through the
four underworlds and were hunting for the Middle Place of the Universe. Some children of the
Wood Fraternity were being carried across a river by the older people and were dropped. The
children turned into water animals, swam downstream and turned into the kachinas. These
kachinas would come back every year to bring rain, crops, and other blessings, to teach the
people and dance with them. Some of the Zuni would follow them, and if you followed them you
would die. So the kachinas didnt come anymore, and instead requested that masks be made to
represent them and that special men of the kivas and some fetish societies would impersonate
them (127-133). When Leaphorn goes searching for Bowlegs by the lake that he believes George
would think the Kothluwalawa would be located, the reader is introduced to the Zuni ideas
towards the killing of animals: the Zuni hunter breathed in the animals last breath. And the
prayer it was a statement of thanks that went with the drinking of the Sacred Wind of Life.
and of the making of the ball of deer fat, and gall, and blood from the heart and hair from the
proper places, and some fetish offerings to be buried when the deer had fallen (172).
Again while with Father Ingles Leaphorn asks if the kachinas are like the Navajos Holy
People: Not really. The kachinas arent like anything in the Navajo or white culture. We dont
have a word for this concept, and neither do you. Theyre not gods. The Zuni have only one
God. But the kachinas are different. Maybe you could call them ancestor spirits. (128).
These concepts of religion and culture are so foreign to the average American. Theyre so
far removed from the Native American cultures depicted in Hollywood; rain dances around a
huge fire, passing around a peace pipe and the white mans fire water. This is a truer depiction of
a more modern way of life on Native American reservations. This is why people keep reading
and enjoying the novel, even though the mystery isnt complex.
The cultural and religious aspects are intertwined, and the mystery is simple, but people
continue to read this novel. The religions of the Zuni and Navajo people are so integrated into
their cultures that it is hard to distinguish a cultural influence from a religious influence and a
religious one from a cultural one. To peak into the culture and religion of a people so different
from mainstream America, is exciting, captivating, and exhilarating. The way Hillerman presents
the aspects of the two peoples is well done and allows the reader to very clearly envision the
culture and religious rituals of the Navajo and Zuni portrayed in Dance Hall of the Dead.

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