1) What is the medical history of the Navajo Native Americans?
2) How does the brevity of Nasdjii’s details effect what the readers thought about the article/ shory story?
3) How does the historical context of the time of the publishing and/or the time of the actual occurence correlate with the story as it is presented?
These are good places to start, Kyra! I think you’ll be able to find some interesting sources about Native Americans and medicine. I know there’s a lot out there on how broken the medical system is on reservations, for instance.
The second question seems mostly like something you’ll handle with your own close reading, but I think you may be able to find some interesting sources about how people took it. Might be interesting to look at reviews of his book (I think there was a longer book including this story?) before and after people figured out it was a fraud.
Number three will hopefully lead you to some more specific questions. Things like stereotypes about Native Americans might be an interesting place to look.