The author of Hopi Kachinas (page 11), one of Northland's best-selling books, takes an in-depth look at Hopi clowns, their purposes, and their historical backgrounds.

During a Tano kachina ceremony, something in the antics of the dancing koshare, a sacred clown, fills the air with tension. Moments later, the clown is found brutally bludgeoned -- in the same manner that a reservation schoolteacher was killed just days before. In true Navajo style, Officer Jim Chee and Lieutenant Leaphorn of the Tribal Police go back to the beginning to decipher the sacred clown's message to the people of the Tano pueblo. Amid guarded tribal secrets and crooked Indian traders, they find a trail of blood that links a runaway schoolboy, two dead bodies, and the mysterious presence of a sacred artifact.

The Hopi, which means "good in every respect," largely lived in northeastern Arizona and were an agricultural society that practiced ancestor worship.

Includes material on shamanism, death, witchcraft, myth, tricksters, and kachina initiations.