Hillerman's interest in the American Southwest, an area of vast differences in climate, topography, and culture, evidences itself clearly in The Blessing Way, as well as in much of his other work. Much of his writing seems to involve his own working out of the essential conflict between the need for harmony and the need to choose between competing cultures. Throughout his writing, however, wherever Hillerman is critical, it is of individual choices, rarely of cultural values.

1. Many people might agree with the statement that only when an individual becomes comfortable within his or her own culture can the effort be made to understand and accept other cultures.

Does Hillerman seem to agree or disagree with this statement?

2. George "Big Navajo" Jackson has been raised apart from his people, and has therefore not learned the Navajo Way.

Is it this separation from "The People" that is...