The Society of the Navajo

The society and culture of the Navajo are major considerations throughout the story. As the story opens, a woman known as the Listening Woman is preparing to provide a reading to direct an ailing man as to the kind of "sings" that would make him well again. The woman sees a vision, typical for her during her times of "listening," and fears that the sings will not occur in time to save the old man's life. In fact, he is already dead at the moment her vision of blackness engulfing him occurs.

Joe Leaphorn notes that he was raised believing in the witches and wolves of the Navajo culture and that he had a fear of the caves, typical of all Navajo people. When he went away to college, he learned to analyze these stories and says that he came home with the understanding...