Son of Old Man Hat: A Navaho Autobiography

Son of Old Man Hat is the autobiography of a Navaho Indian from childhood to maturity. With a simplicity as disarming as it is frank, it tells of his birth in the spring "when the cottonwood leaves were about the size of my thumbnail," of how he first shared family tasks by guarding the sheep near the hogan, of his sexual awakening. As he grows older, into the story come accounts of life in the open, of nomadic cattle-raising, farming, trading, communal enterprises, tribal dances and ceremonies, love-making and marriage. Free though it is, it is a life founded upon principle: as Son of Old Man Hat grows in understanding as well as in stature, the accumulated wisdom of his race is made known to him. He learns the necessity of honesty, foresightedness, self-discipline. The style in which the narrative is clothed is almost biblical in its rhythms; but biblical, too, in many respects,is the "savage" way of life which it recounts.