The Relationship between Place, Language and Culture

Basso explains early on in the book that he thinks anthropologists have let the study of the relationship between language, place and culture fall into disrepair. Few ethnographers worked on those issues, and when Basso started his research it was a relatively dead field. Basso's efforts in the book are aimed at reviving the study of the intersection of these three elements. Towards this end, he argues that the Western Apache culture can only be understood in terms of this intersection.

The key element that Basso uses to demonstrate his point is the place-name. The place-name is a name for a particular geographical location combined with some social fact, like an imagined historical event, a real historical event, a description of what a particular location looks like to the viewer or a tie to a spiritual lesson. Place-names compact various sensory elements...