Reclaiming Dine History : The Legacies of Navajo Chief Manuelito and Juanita

In this groundbreaking book, Navajo historian Jennifer Nez Denetdale seeks to rewrite the history of the Navajo, or Dine, people. Reared on the Navajo Nation in New Mexico and Arizona, Jennifer Nez Denetdale is the great-great-great-granddaughter of the well-known Navajo chief Manuelito (1816-1894) and his nearly unknown wife Juanita (1845-1910). Stimulated in part by seeing photographs of her ancestors, she began to explore her family history as a way of examining broader issues in Navajo historiography. Here she presents a thought-provoking examination of the construction of Dine history that underlines the dichotomy between Navajo and non-Navajo perspectives on the past. Book jacket.