FLAGSTAFF, AZ—In the book “We Walk the Earth in Beauty: Traditional Navajo Lifeways,” readers experience time-honored practices of the Navajo people as shared by wisdom-keepers who live close to the land and follow ancestral ways. The book offers careful descriptions of how traditional Navajo people do everything from making yucca shampoo to building a hogan. Watch and listen as Mary Joe Yazzie fires a clay pot, Hazel Nez weaves a rug, and Sam Worker stitches a pair of moccasins for his wife. In this book’s 19 richly illustrated, informative chapters, readers will learn much that is of practical value for living in harmony with a desert environment.
Author Kathy Eckles Hooker moved to the Navajo Reservation in the 1970s, where she taught English to Diné students at Dilcon Boarding School. Later, she taught English at Flagstaff Unified School District for 33 years, where again she worked with Diné students.
“Living on the Navajo Reservation, I experienced amazement at how Navajo people lived close to their land,” Hooker said. “I wanted to listen and learn as they shared their traditions and create a book that would document those lifeways.”
Hooker found a project partner in photographer Helen Lau Running (1945–2014). Born in Trinidad and Tobago, Running committed herself to documenting traditional lifeways and environmental stewardship among the peoples and cultural landscapes of the Colorado Plateau.
First published in 1991 as “Time Among the Navajo,” the book has been redesigned. This third edition includes a new preface, foreword, introductory text, and notes. In its review, Kirkus described the book as “a straightforward and richly atmospheric illustrated look at traditional Navajo customs.” The book is now on sale everywhere books are sold, including independent bookstores, online shops, and from Flagstaff-based Soulstice Publishing.
Its publication reflects a belief in the importance of preserving traditional Navajo cultural practices in book form and sharing them with Navajo and non-Navajo people alike.
