Left Handed, Son of Old Man Hat: A Navajo Autobiography

By Walter Dyk and Left Handed

Book Overview

With a simplicity as disarming as it is frank, Left Handed tells of his birth in the spring "when the cottonwood leaves were about the size of my thumbnail," of family chores such as guarding the sheep near the hogan, and of his sexual awakening. As he grows older, his account turns to life in the open: nomadic cattle-raising, farming, trading, communal enterprises, tribal dances and ceremonies, lovemaking, and marriage. As Left Handed grows in understanding and stature, the accumulated wisdom of his people is made known to him. He learns the Navajo life founded upon principles: the necessity of honesty, foresightedness, self-discipline. The style of the narrative is almost biblical in its rhythms; but biblical, too, in many respects, is the traditional way of life it recounts.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0803279582
• ISBN13: 9780803279582
• Release Date: January 1995
• Publisher: Bison Books
• Length: 378 Pages
• Weight: 0.93 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 5.5" x 8.2"

Customer Reviews

Great Autobiographical history!

This book is certainly a quick read, but I found it to be quite entertaining. If you want to get some sense of the Navajo lifestyle from the time in history after the Long Walk, this book would be for you. There were similarities for me to the The Good Earth by Pearl Buck. The instructions Left Hand's father gave him prior to his death were practical to any society. The struggles that this wealthy (by living standards of the time) family endured due to crop failures and grazing really gave me a sense of how they lived. Left Hand talks about it however in a very matter of fact way. The culture and family is not explained, but one does learn about it as you read the book. I would love to read more first hand accounts like this.

Authentic and fun.

This book remains solidly in my memory though I read it over 30 years ago. As a child I spent some years on the Navajo Nation - my parents were teachers. This book brought back all my memories of the cadence of the language, of the passing of the seasons, of the herding of sheep, of sustaining a quintessentially "American" way of life.

great insight

gives the reader an insight into late 1800's native american (this particular tribe, the Navaho, anyway) thinking

This is a great book!

This is a great book. I first read it about thirty years ago when I was in college. The book reminded me of that part of my childhood spent growing up on the Navajo Nation, when my parents were school teachers there. The book is an anthropological document of the first order but it reads like a novel and is full of humor and pathos. It shows the joy of childhood in a 'simple' culture while painting vivid images of that culture. While the book struck a resonant chord with me, its appeal is universal. It is a mystery, because the unexpectedness of real life is in every page, but it is free of horror and full of affection. I would like to see the book reprinted in hard cover so I can add it to my library in proper form, though I still have the thirty year old paperback.