This remarkable book introduces us to four unforgettable Apache people, each of whom offers a different take on the importance of places within their culture. Apache conceptions of wisdom, manners and morals, and of their personal background are inextricably intertwined with place, and by allowing us to overhear his conversations with Apaches on these topics Basso expands our knowing of what place can mean to people.

Most of us use the term sense of place often and rather carelessly when we think of character or house or literature. Our senses of place, nevertheless, come not only from our specific experiences but also from our cultures. Knowledge Sits in Areas, the first sustained study of locations and place-names by an anthropologist, explores place, areas, and what they suggest to a specific group of people, the Western Apache in Az. For a lot more than thirty years, Keith Basso is doing fieldwork among the Traditional western Apache, and today he shares with us what he has discovered of Apache place-names-where they come from and what they mean to Apaches.