Southwest Books

Like weaving itself, Navajo and Hopi Weaving Techniques, published in 1974, will never go out of date. Mary Pendleton, a long-time skilled weaver who relocated to Arizona in 1958, explains both techniques in an easily understandable, step-by-step process with abundant close-up photos to illustrate the lessons. With sample patterns, Pendleton takes you, row by row, through the weaving of a rug, a belt and a sash.

Like two books in one, this wonderful publication first examines and explains Navajo rug weaving with attention to yarns, spinning and dyeing, turned lock and interlock methods, design and troubleshooting. She also has instructions on building your own loom. The second part, also with details on yarn, spinning, design, troubleshooting, and loom instructions, demonstrates two separate Hopi weaving techniques, warp float weave and embroidery weave.

Howard Gorman, member of the Navajo Tribal Council, introduces the first part. White Bear Fredericks, a member of Coyote Clan of the Hopi Nation, introduces the second. Eight pages of color photos display several rugs, sashes and belts woven with these methods.

"This book of postcards offers a dazzling array of richly hued, intricately patterned textiles made by Navajo people from 1840 through 1970--more than a century's worth of Navajo textile designs selected for their historical significance and accompanied by an informative essay. Included are examples of tapestries, rugs, ponchos, serapes, and blankets of every description, from wearing blankets and chief's blankets to pictorial blankets, transitional blankets, and saddle blankets. All are from the collection of the Southwest Museum in Los Angeles, California. 30 color photographs.

"Note: postcards are oversized and may require additional postage. ISBN: 0-7649-0027-7; size: 4 3/4 x 6 7/8"."--© Pomegranate

Caught between a plethora of beautiful picture books written by visitors who rush undigested material into print and scholarly tomes too pithy and densely packed with jargon to be understood by anyone, sometimes even the author, it is rare to find a book that is written by an academic thoroughly versed in her subject yet so enjoyable to read that it may as well be a novel. You will find Professor Willow Roberts Powers' "Navajo Trading the end of an era" a joy to read for its lively style, and you will gain an introduction to and an understanding of a complex period in our national history.
The text is enlivened with quotes from oral histories of Navajo Indians and traders who lived together through friendship and animosity, trust and fear, hardship and wealth. It is evident that Powers understands her subject from decades of contact and is able to outline the intricate social and political interactions that changed the lives of people in the Southwest in fundamental ways.
I know some of the people in the book, many are still alive, and even after years of contact I feel I know them better now that I have read their story as Powers writes it, casting light in the cobwebby corners of memory and bringing a time past into clear view. The era may have ended but the story and its people still live today in its aftermath.
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Absolutely first class! A superb study with everything one would expect from a professional historian: Facts and more facts and more details and then some analysis. The perfect prequel to NAVAJO ROUNDUP, by Lawrence C. Kelly, wherein one learns the truth of the Kit Carson campaign into Navajo land in 1862 and 1863. This book should be required reading for ALL Navajo people. Far too many modern writers and pseudo-historians begin with the Navajo Long Walk; McNitt's book starts where one should, at the beginnig, back in 1625, not 1863.

Library Journal's review of this guide: "Combining encyclopedic coverage of destinations with loads of practical information and atlas-type maps, the series illuminates the wonders of nature but emphasizes the peculiarity of a place's people and their folklore."

A fine map, and nice to be able to just get it online at Amazon.

I am traveling to Pakistan this June and July to attend the worlds Highest Polo Match.
Travel to the Shandur Pass in the HinduKush area will be overland and having the map will let me know just where I am at all times.

Suzann Ledbetter is one of the foremost Nellie Cashman experts and is a great place to start on any adventure that includes the wily and clever prospector. This is a great introduction, has lots of photos and lots and lots of well researched information. I recommend it highly.

I used to work at the restaurant. The food was fantastic. Philomena did a wonderful job with this book. The Sopaipillas are to die for along with the sopa and just about everything in the book. It sure would be good if it could go on the market again.

Spanning the years 1840 to 1890, New Mexico In The Nineteenth Century by Andrew K. Gregg is an impressive and informative "picture history" of New Mexico's history and features more than 500 original woodcuts and steel engravings by 19th Century artists and explorers. Replete with scenes of Indian pueblos, Spanish villages, and frontier army posts, the engaging text draws from diverse sources as the journals of early travelers, long out of print books, official reports. Each illustrations is enhanced with an accompanying text and is identified as to its source. New Mexico In The Nineteenth Century is a unique and highly recommended contribution to American Frontier History in general New Mexico historical studies in particular.