The beef business ain't what it used to be, but Kenny "Black Elk" Shepard's casino is bustling-so much that he's buying all the ranches in Spearfish and turning them into official tribal land. But the Flying-C ain't selling, and word has it, them boys'll go down swinging. So with the help of an insider-a Custer and power-hungry politician herself-Kenny Shepard plans a hostile takeover: kill off the stock, make it look like an act of God. But when the plan goes awry resulting in casualties on both sides, it'll be all out war for this small piece of land. As the lines between good and evil become blurred, the only moral compass in the town is Sheriff Weston Harris and his cantankerous, post-menopausal deputy in this modern-day Cowboys versus Indians.

Learn how to plan and plant your garden, create compost, save seeds, conserve water, connect with garden goddesses and incorporate planetary energy in your garden.

Dramatic geographical formations tower over the Four Corners country in the southwestern United States. The mountains, cliffs, and sandstone spires, familiar landmarks for anglo travelers, orient Navajos both physically and spiritually. In Sacred Land, Sacred View, Robert McPherson describes the mythological significance of these landmarks. Navajos read their environment as a spiritual text: the gods created the physical world to help, teach, and protect people through an integrated system of beliefs represented in nature. The author observes that the Middle East is of "no greater import to Christians than the Dine's holy land is to Navajos." He continues: "Sacred mountains circumscribe the land, containing the junction of the San Juan River and Mancos Creek, where Born for Water invoked supernatural aid to overcome danger and death and where, at the Bear's Ears formation, good triumphed over evil." The more one learns about the Dine, the more one inevitably admires their way of perceiving and interpreting what lies just beyond the focus of human vision. Their renowned respect for nature and way of living in harmony with the environment derive from their religious traditions.

Few regions of the United States can equal the high concentration of endangered ancient cultural sites found in Hawaii. Built by the indigenous people of the Islands, the sites range in age from two thousand to two hundred years old and in size and extent from large temple complexes serving the highest order of chiefs to modest family shrines. Today, many of these structures are threatened by their proximity to urban development. Sites are frequently vandalized or, worse, bulldozed to make way for hotels, golf courses, marinas, and other projects. The sixty heiau photographed and described in this volume are all located on Oahu, the island that has experienced by far the most development over the last two hundred years. These captivating images provide a compelling argument for the preservation of Hawaiian sacred places. The modest sites of the maka‘ainana (commoners) - small fishing, agricultural, craft, and family shrines - are given particular attention because they are often difficult to recognize and prone to vandalism and neglect. Also included are the portraits of twenty-eight Hawaiians who shared their knowledge with archaeologist J. Gilbert McAllister during his survey of Oahu in the 1930s. Without their contribution, the names and histories of many of the heiau would have been lost. The introductory text provides important contextual information about the definition and function of heiau, the history of the abolition of traditional Hawaiian religion, preservation issues, and guidelines for visiting heiau. With contributions by Kehaunani Cachola-Abad, J. Mikilani Ho, and Kawika Makanani.

"Another solid entry in an entertaining series." -"Booklist" "Good pacing, a light touch, and a genuine feel for the period."-"Kirkus Reviews" Menedemos, the young dashing sea captain, and his helper (and cousin) the scholarly Sostratos, are back in their third adventure. This time around the two cousins end up in the Sacred Land, Jerusalem, where they encounter a strange religion. This fascinates Sostratos, who wants to learn as much as he can about the strange monotheists living there. The more worldly Menedemos looks more toward more common pleasures, particularly those involving pretty women (not letting small inconveniences like their marriage to other men get in the way). But, as always, trouble follows them. From cargo they can't sell to bandits and thugs waiting to jump them, they must once again use their quick wits to survive and, hopefully, make a profit from their long journey.

Describes two journeys: a journey outward to specific pilgrimage places in Eastern Tibet and a journey inward, to the sacred world of tantra, accessible through contemplation and meditation.

In Over the Wine-Dark Sea and The Gryphon’s Skull, H. N. Turteltaub brought to life the teeming world of maritime Greece, in the unsettled years following the death of Alexander the Great. Now Menedemos and Sostratos, those dauntless capitalists of the third century B.C., have set sail again--this time to Phoenicia. There Menedemos will spend the summer trading, while his cousin Sostratos travels inland to the little-known country of Ioudaia, with its strange people and their even stranger religious obsessions. In theory, Sostratos is going in search of cheap balsam, a perfume much in demand in the Mediterranean world. In truth, scholarly Sostratos just wants to get a good look at a part of the world unknown to most Hellenes. And the last thing he wants is to have to take along a bunch of sailors from the Aphrodite as his bodyguards. But Menedemos insists. He knows that bandits on land are as dangerous as pirates at sea, and he has no faith in Sostratos’ ability to dodge them. Meanwhile, it turns out that the prime hams and smoked eels they picked up en route are unsalable to Ioudaians. (Who knew?) And worst of all, Sostratos’ new brother-in-law has managed to talk their fathers into loading the Aphrodite with hundreds of amphorae of his best olive oil--when they’re trading in a region that has no shortage of it. It’s a hard day's work, hustling for an honest drachma.