In A Thief of Time, Tony Hillerman's characters show perspectives from different cultural backgrounds. In Jim Chee and Joe Leaphorn we see a shared legacy, as well as their contrasting viewpoints that come from choosing different values ​​to live by. Many characters in Hillerman's book, who are not of Navajo blood, connect to Navajo culture through digging, collecting, and personal gain. This essay will briefly touch on the views of three characters; Jim Chee, Joe Leaphorn and Richard DuMont. In these three, we are able to see a variety of cultural angles and values ​​through their interactions with a single interface, death. The differences between Jim Chee and Joe Leaphorn are blatantly evident throughout the book. The two characters are symbols of divergent paths that arise from a corresponding kinship. Both characters are aware of their ancestors' tribal rituals regarding dealing with death. In Chee we see the perspective of someone who immerses himself wholeheartedly in a set of cultural beliefs. "Jim Chee was a modern man built on Navajo tradition. This was just too much death. Too many disturbed ghosts... He just wanted to be away from here. In the cleansing heat of a sweat bath. To be surrounded by healing, healing sounds of a Ghostway Ceremonial,” ( 96). By recognizing the “Chindi” infestation, he is able to draw substance from his Navajo roots to address it. “He crouched, singing the sweat-bath songs the Holy People had taught… The concern for bones and the Buick faded into the warm darkness,” (117). His strong connection to a culture grants him freedom from the infestation of death. The contrasting perspectives of Chee and Leaphorn arise from the values ​​they ground... at the center of the card... the Time Thief successfully uses death as a symbol to express how different cultural connections generate different perspectives. products of a single root, the differences between Leaphorn and Chee are set out in black and white. Because they have chosen opposing values ​​to live by, their choices in dealing with loss are drastic. Joe Leaphorn ignores Navajo rituals, while Jim Chee immerses himself in them. The choices of these characters illuminate how our values ​​as people determine how successfully we approach situations. The third character, Richard DuMont, shows how a person can ignore the pain and loss of another. Its disconnected relationship with real emotion inhibits the possibility of feeling something real. The different points of view present in Hillerman's book parallel the different choices and their results of modern society..