My character analysis presentation on Jim Chee from Tony Hillerman's "Sacred Clowns"

1. [ Character Analysis ]

7. Plot overview Leiutenant Leaphorn and his assistant Jim Chee are working backwards in a police investigation,trying to find the link between the murder of the school teacher (Dorsey), the hit-and-run case (Todashin), and the murder of the Koshare.

8. Plot overview “ True, he had only been second man in the two-man Special Investigations Office for three days… They should be investigating Continental Collectors, and Tribal Councilman Jimmy Chester, and those people in the Bureau of Land Management, and the whole conspiracy to make the Checkerboard Reservation a national garbage pit. That’s what he should be doing—not chasing after a runaway schoolboy who wasn’t even a Navajo. Or was just barely a Navajo. And Hunting him just because his grandmother was a big shot on the Navajo Tribal Council.” (pg 9)

9. Jim Chee

10. Jim Chee + Good looking + Young + Smart

11. Jim Chee + Good looking + Young + Smart + Good memory, as trained through his Navajo background. + Forgets to follow police-rules (i.e. taking leave w/o notice). + Determined in nature.

12. Jim Chee + Good looking + Young + Smart + Good memory, as trained through his Navajo background. + Forgets to follow police-rules (i.e. taking leave w/o notice). + Determined in nature. + Relatively traditional. + Wants to marry Janet, but is afraid their relationship is taboo.

13. Chee’s Navajo Ways + Follows the Beauty Way . The belief system; keeping in harmony with nature in order to keep harmony among people.

14. Chee’s Navajo Ways + Follows the Beauty Way . The belief system; keeping in harmony with nature in order to keep harmony among people. + Wants to be Hataalii . Singer/medicine man. Shaman of the highest order.

15. Chee’s Navajo Ways + Hozho “ I’ll use an example. Terrible drought, crops dead, sheep dying. Spring dried out. No water. The Hopi, or the Christian, maybe the Moslem, they pray for rain. The Navajo has the proper ceremony done to restore himself to harmony with the drought… The system is designed to recognize what’s beyond human power to change, and then to change the human’s attitude to be content with the inevitable.” - Chee (pg 319)

16. Chee’s Navajo Ways + Hozho “ So I think the concept of hozho means you adjust the ceremonial system like you adjust everything else. You keep it in harmony with the inevitable… Well, that’s why we Navajos have endured. Survivied with our culture alive. This philosophy of hozho kept us alive.”

17. Chee’s Navajo Ways + Hozho “ And some of the shamans I know, mostly the younger ones, they split a long ceremony over two weekends, so working people can take part. That’s the way I’d do it. And Hosteen Nakai knows it, and it’s poison to him, and the other two. They say done that way, the ceremony does more harm than good.” - Chee (pg 320)

18. Applicable Concepts Multiple Identities (Chee, Janet, Blizzard) Emic/Etic views (pg 131-132 landscape, Ch. 11 movie) Boarding schools + Code Switching (KNDN Radio station pg 198 & 228)

19. I recommend it! Good cop-story. Interesting cultural setting. A smart read.