Laughing Boy
LAUGHING BOY
BY
OLIVER LA FARGE
THE LITERARY GUILD OF AMERICA
Incorporated
1929
COPYRIGHT, 1929, BY OLIVER LA FARGE
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED, INCLUDING THE RIGHT TO REPRODUCE
THIS BOOK OR PARTS THEREOF IN ANY FORM
PRINTED IN THE U.S.A.
DEDICATED
TO
The only beautiful squaw I have ever seen
in all my life, whose name I have forgotten
INTRODUCTORY NOTE
This book is a work of fiction. I have tried to be as true as I knew how to the general spirit of Navajo things, to customs and character, but all personages and incidents in the story are fictitious, as well as places. I have used some real place-names applied to imaginary places, or else have shifted them a hundred miles or so. There are about thirty thousand Navajos, most of whom have at least two descriptive names; it would be impossible, then, to invent names for all my characters and not hit upon some real ones. So I have frankly borrowed from names I have heard, or those listed by scientists. But neither whites nor Indians are real.
I have been as accurate as possible about ceremonies, rites, and customs. If occasionally I have taken liberties, I plead a writer's privilege. Any innovations I may have made are none the less true to the general pattern of Navajo ideas.
This story is meant neither to instruct nor to prove a point, but to amuse. It is not propaganda, nor an indictment of anything. The hostility with which certain of the characters in it view Americans and the American system is theirs, arising from the plot, and not the author’s. The picture is frankly one-sided. It is also entirely possible.
O. La F.
New Orleans, 1929
Chapters (not listed in original)
This work is in the public domain in the United States because it was published before January 1, 1930.
The longest-living author of this work died in 1963, so this work is in the public domain in countries and areas where the copyright term is the author's life plus 61 years or less. This work may be in the public domain in countries and areas with longer native copyright terms that apply the rule of the shorter term to foreign works.
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