Author Description

In this collection of reminiscences Father Berard Haile relates his experiences as a missionary to the Navajo Indians. Posted to St. Michael's Mission in 1900, Haile devoted the next half century to the study of Navajo language and culture and considered the study of indigenous peoples at least as important as proselytizing. During his long career, Haile published numerous pathbreaking works on Navajo linguistics and ethnography. He died in 1961, one of the most respected students of Navajo culture. In these stories Haile recalls bear hunting, baseball, Navajo and Hopi ceremonialism, the first car on the reservation, St. Michael's Press, traders, Chinle and Lukachukai, and other people, places, and events on the reservation. Eight appendices reprint hard-to-find articles by Haile and other Franciscans on the Navajos. Bodo's transcriptions retain the color and flavor of the oral accounts, and his introduction discusses Haile as a missionary and anthropologist.