Navajo -- Religion, Medicine bundles, Traditional medicine, Navajo 

"Using historical and ethnographic fieldwork data (1963-1986), this long-awaited study focuses on the life cycle of Navajo medicine bundles or jish. Frisbie examines how jish are assembled, used, and protected, and how they are circulated among Navajos and others such as esoteric art dealers, gallery owners, and museums via loan, barter, gift, sale, kinship, inheritance, and legal mechanisms. To outsiders, jish are material objects, ceremonial tool kits, or containers which house the diverse ceremonial equipment needed by singers to practice the curing and preventative ceremonies that characterize traditional navajo religion. To Navajos, jish are alive, sacred, and powerful.

In today's world, the use, transmission and fate of jish are tied to larger issues and concerns. What does it mean to be Indian? How should ethnicity be expressed or cultural heritage preserved? The Navajo Nation and special interest groups are seeking answers to these and other questions. Anyone interested in the preservation of Navajo cultural heritage will want to read this book."--Book jacket.