Where the Two Came to Their Father: A Navaho War Ceremonial

by Maud Oakes and Jeff King

This work takes its title from the richly symbolic creation legend of the Navaho people, which they incorporated into their blessing ceremony for tribe members headed to battle. Having observed this rite during World War II, when native Americans were for the first time drafted into the U.S. military, ethnologist Maud Oakes recorded the legend and made reproductions of the beautiful ceremonial paintings, given to her by the medicine man Jeff King...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0691020698
• ISBN13: 9780691020693
• Release Date: January 1991
• Publisher: Princeton University Press
• Length: 72 Pages
• Weight: 1.00 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.4" x 7.5" x 9.9"

Customer Reviews

A work of meaningful art!

I heard this tale when I went to Indian Hills Elementary School in Gallup, NM in the early 70's. They showed it on one of the old filmstrips and I never forgot it. This story has carried me through life, and only after a long, long search did I finally find it a few years ago in this book. What a surprise to find Joseph Campbell involved with it, too! The sandpaintings of Jeff King, interpreted by Maud Oakes, are phenomenal! This story is truly magical, steeped deeply in the enchanting god-country of the Navajo. It was quite appropriately chosen as the first book of the Bollingen Series.