CRAIG CONLEY (Prof. Oddfellow) is recognized by Encarta as “America’s most creative and diligent scholar of letters, words and punctuation.” He has been called a “language fanatic” by Page Six gossip columnist Cindy Adams, a “cult hero” by Publisher’s Weekly, a “monk for the modern age” by George Parker, and “a true Renaissance man of the modern era, diving headfirst into comprehensive, open-minded study of realms obscured or merely obscure” by Clint Marsh. An eccentric scholar, Conley’s ideas are often decades ahead of their time. He invented the concept of the “virtual pet” in 1980, fifteen years before the debut of the popular “Tamagotchi” in Japan. His virtual pet, actually a rare flower, still thrives and has reached an incomprehensible size. Conley’s website is OneLetterWords.com.
Here are some mythical personages of Navajo origin, drawn in charcoal. From the Smithsonian Institution's Bureau of American Ethnology's Bulletin 65, 1919.
"Tse'-xo-be (Spider), life symbol of the Osage tribe's Hon-ga (sacred person) U-ta-non-dsi (isolated one) Gens (the earth)." From the Annual Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology to the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, 1915.