ABOUT TWENTY YEARS ago, while living in Arizona, I read a good number of the mystery novels by Tony Hillerman.  They centered on the exploits of a Navajo detective who used his senses of harmony and balance to solve crimes on the enormous reservation that covers parts of  Arizona, New Mexico, Utah and Colorado.  It includes Hopi and other tribal sections.  Robert Redford bought the rights to some of the material and co-produced this with George R. R. Martin and others.

One of the benefits of the “whodunnits” here is the look into the Navajo culture. It’s matriarchal and mystical, holistic and animist; it’s beautiful, noble and vulnerable.

[There’s currently a Ken Burns’ documentary on the American Bison and the effect is the same: you learn about the plight of the largest land mammal in North America, but cannot miss its effect on the First Peoples as their lives were intertwined. Years ago, I watched a documentary on the extinction of the passenger pigeon in North America. Billions of birds were killed for commercial purposes mostly. It was hard to watch. The Bison story is hard to watch as well due to the ravages on Native American, their society and culture, and due to the wholesale slaughter for commercial purposes of the bison–which survived extinction.]

I am still on Season 1 from last year, but at the rate I am going, will have binged both seasons in another week.

WRH