Southwest Books

The collaborative work of John Watson, Carole Peterson, and Deanna Payne, In Our Backyards: Public And Private Gardens Of The Texas Coastal Bend is a showcase of the Corpus Christi Botanical Gardens & Nature Center, created to commemorate the center's new focus on local environmental issues and ecofriendly tourism. Beautiful full-color photography of public and private gardens give a personal view of delicate wildflowers, soothing greenhouses, somber statues, Mexican courtyards, and much more. Each location has a brief amount of text guiding the reader amid highlights of its harmoniously cultivated plant life. In Our Backyards is a rapturously beautiful giftbook and the next best thing to visiting Texas gardens in person.

The author gives historical information, info on gathering materials, as well as detailed instructions with excellent photographs, on Indian basket weaving from several tribes. From some of her comments about the weavers and their attitudes, I suspect she knows them personally or at least did her research very well! Excellent documentation and bibliography. You can even learn some Indian words! I highly recommend this book and want to add it to my library!

The elders are on the front line mixing new ideas into old, at the School of American Research meeting for INDIAN BASKETRY ARTISTS OF THE SOUTHWEST. The area still is known for making baskets and pottery. Coiled or plaited or very old twined, the baskets take more time to make.

They also are one of the strongest parts of southwestern cultures, now and back when. Specifically, Hopi indians draw on the oldest known tradition, going back 1,500 years. Generally, southwestern baskets have been popular outside the area, since 1821. The opening of the Santa Fe trail started up some heavy duty trading with the world outside the southwest.

No energy- or time-saving equipment is used, not now or then. But some modern tools can be used. Helpers are tin lids, scissors, pruning shears, knives, fingernail clippers and awls.

But baskets still are made from many of the same old plant parts. Some of the materials are yucca, horsehair or cattail stems for coiling; sunflower seeds for black dye; sumac bush for twining; kaolin clay for natural white to show better; and alder bark for tan, red or brown dyes. Finding them is getting harder, what with plants losing ground to highways, subdivisions and hard-to-predict weather.

It impresses me that each southwestern culture keeps up a different way to start and end baskets. So finely twined baskets are western Apache. They still are needed in the sunrise ceremony, for a girl's coming-of-age. Red willow bowl baskets are made from sacred Rio Grande plants, for Pueblo basket dances. They often hang on the wall, as decoration, between uses. And sumac splints sewn on a triangular 3-rod foundation, with a false braid or herringbone finish, go into Navajo wedding baskets.

Also interestingly, baskets, like other parts of southwestern cultures, tie past, present and future together. This happens with traditional designs. So one favorite design of first man placing stars keeps alive part of the Navajo Genesis. Likewise, another favorite design of a turtle surrounded by clouds and thunder calls to mind the highly successful Hopi rain ceremony.

This well-written book gets to the point, with helpful comments from the artists and with pretty pictures. There's space for it on the shelf with Kathryn N Bernick's BASKETRY AND CORDAGE FROM HESQUIAT HARBOR, Mary Dodds Schlick's COLUMBIA RIVER BASKETRY, and Rachel Nash Law and Cynthia W Taylor's APPALACHIAN WHITE OAK BASKETMAKING.

This book is excellent. It has all the information about my family in it. The pictures of my great great great grandfather and his wife and their family are extraordinary. If I could find more copies of this book I would buy them also.

In his new book, Indian Country, Sacred Ground, Native People, photographer and writer John Annerino has once again captured the spirit, history and beauty of the American West. Traveling through the sacred land of the Navajo, Hopis, Apache and Pagago people, Annerino bears witness to the majesty, mystery and the spiritual magnificence of this land. His photographs capture awesome vistas and mountain ranges as well as Native ceremonies. He "sees" the light of this land in a way that conveys the deep emotional and spiritual attachement he has to both it and it's people and his words express and explan the history and beliefs of the areas tribes with respect and reverence. This is trully one of his finest works to date. Indian Country is a testament to the sacred history of the West and a lesson that these lands and traditions must be preserved and honored.

Polly's book is great in that it tells not only about the rock art and the styles but also tells about the cultures that have created it. I have a small rock art tour company in central Utah, and have read both this book and Rock Art of Utah. They are both great and have been a great help to me in my field.

As in all his books, Mr. Hunt presents the techniques you'll need to master to make silver jewelry in a clear, concise, easy-to-follow manner, complete with illustrations. When visitors to my silversmithing page ask me for advice as to how they can get started making their own jewelry, this is THE ONE book I can and do whole-heartedly recommend. I don't know what the cost of this out-of-print book is these days, but it'll be well worth it at any price. In this fine book, you will learn how to make your own solder, how to make and temper stamps, and a million other things, all without spending a ton of money on fancy and unnecessary equipment. Buy it and see for yourself!

I want to know all about Mississipi City Histor

There are probably only about three people in the world interested in this subject: you, me, and the author. That being said this is a jewel of a book in the genre of academic histories. Not the least of its virtues is that the author has included the astonishing total of 46 maps and charts to help the reader along. Given the usual sparse and inadequate maps of low-budget academic books this is much-appreciated.

The focus of the book is the trade relations between the Cree and Assiniboine Indians of Manitoba and Saskatchewan with French and English traders. In describing the trade the author drops in numerous pearls of wisdom about wildlife and ecology of the Canadian plains, Indian hunting strategies, inter-tribal relations, epidemics, and even details about the trade items most popular with the Indians and their prices in beaver pelts. One of the most interesting sections of the book concerns the role of firearms versus bows and arrows in Indian hunting and warfare. Another little gem concerns the Indian dislike of eating "red deer" meat. It took me a while to figure out that the Canadian author was talking about what we would call "elk" in the US.

This is a sound and scholarly history that delves deeply into the files of the Hudson Bay Company and other trading companies to paint what seems to be an authentic picture of Indian life on the Canadian plains in the early days of White/Indian contact. Highly recommended!

Smallchief

I find the In Sight series to be the best for me when it comes to travel information in new locations. The information is normally not time sensitive. This guide answers a lot of travel questions as well as give information on locations around the country. It helps me decide what I want to see and what to include in the tour.