Holy Wind in Navajo Philosophy

James Kale McNeley is an anthropologist, and this University of Arizona Press book is the standard English-language scholarly study of nilch'i, Holy Wind, in Navajo philosophy, based on field interviews McNeley conducted with Navajo consultants at Many Farms, Arizona, between 1970 and 1972. Its strength is that it is grounded directly in the words of Navajo consultants rather than reconstructed from outside theory, and it remains the standard reference cited across later scholarship on Navajo religious thought. Its limit is that it reflects the understanding of the specific consultants McNeley worked with at one place and time, so a claim about Navajo religious philosophy more broadly should note that individual traditional teachers can differ in emphasis.