Southwest Books

Prefaced with a new biographical introduction by the author's son, James Schevill and wife Margot Blum Schevill, The Pollen Path retells twelve classic Navajo myths translated directly from her interviews of Navajo medicine men. The stories are enriched by line drawings of Navajo artist Andy Tsihnahjinnie and commentary by Dr. Joseph Henderson on Navajo myth and legend in relation to world mythology. Further embellishing this reissuing of the 1950 publication is the biographical material written by James Schevill. There is no doubt that Margaret Schevill Link led an unusual life. Her drive to seek out the authentic content of Navajo sacred tales has left us with a treasured legacy of recordings. In addition to the tales, there are many songs and chants in the appendix, plus multiple observations of the author from her many visits to the Southwest. She wrote: "The pollen path is the way between gods and men, and it expresses the harmony that should exist between them." This sacred way fascinated her and seeking it shaped her life. A contemporary, Wright, Henderson, Woelff, and Lorenzo Hubbell, trader, nurse, and philanthropist to the Navajo and Hopi tribes, Margaret Schevill Link translates the great Navajo tales of the First Worlds, the Turquoise Goddess, Changing Coyote, Earth Man, the Dreamer, and many more. The Pollen Path is a fine and beautiful collection of myth, worthy of pleasure and learning on many levels.

Nancy Lorraine, Reviewer

Polygamy On The Pedernales: Lyman Wight's Mormon Villages in Antebellum Texas, 1845 to 1858 by Melvin C. Johnson (teaches history and English at Angelina College in Lufkin, Texas) is the true history of a Mormon splinter group, led by maverick Mormon apostle Lyman Wight. After Joseph Smith Jr.'s murder in 1844, Wight led his church to establish a Texas colony; his antagonism with Brigham Young kept his group apart from the majority of Mormons gathering in Utah. Though Wight and his followers made a significant contribution to the local Texas economy, Wight's death in 1858 while leading his dwindling group of followers on yet another migration brought an end to his splinter sect. An exhaustively researched saga, presented in a manner equally accessible to lay readers and religious history scholars.

David Fitzgerald is one of Oklahoma's top photographers and this book just makes you want to travel to all the wonderful spots he's captured on film!

Portraits is a good word to describe the artful way the author describes his subjects, both natural and human in this collection of stories about the Trans-Pecos. For a backpacker like myself, the story about the solo hike in the Guadalupes reflects my own feelings about the activity better than I ever could, and in fact inspired my own trip to the same place where I had much the same experiences. I collect books on the Big Bend area, and this is the best I've read. If you want a book with a soul but no sentimentality, this it. Reminds me somewhat of David Lavender.

Ms Debo's fictional tale includes stories of the city where I live. Family names are familiar and it is interesting to drive around the area and imagine what life was like in that period. For those of you used to Ms Debo's more scholarly works, you will enjoy this book.

Don Blevins has written another informative, yet thoroughly, entertaining book. I enjoyed it very much.

This book is fascinating! I don't care if it is a children's book, I bought it before I traveled to Pueblo de Taos and Mesa Verde. I loved reading about how the pueblos and kivas were built. It's the next best thing to crawling inside for yourself!

Many credit William Lumpkins with starting the adobe and pueblo revival movments. His designs are inspired. Lumpkins went back to the cliff dwellings and ancient pueblos looking for organic shapes and forms. His rooms seldom have square corners. Hornos, bancos and nichos (beehive fireplaces, bench seats and wall recesses)abound. There are living and dining rooms modeled after kivas, subterranean ceremonial chambers. Library and bedroom might be found in a three-story tower. Ceilings are made of vigas overset with latillas in herringbone pattern. Doors are carved. The roof-line is never even having an organic look like a range of mountains.

A word of caution. These work best in adobe and similar materials. The designs were laid down in the 1960s and before. Bathrooms and closets are tiny. Utility rooms are nonexistant. Each design needs some reworking to be useful today. They are not inexpensive homes to build. They are spectacular.

From the back cover:
Pueblo Deco is a distinctively American architecture and design style developed in the Southwest during the first 30 years of the 20th Century. Its imagery is a blend of the legends of the Wild West, the motifs of Native American and Hispanic cultures, and the aesthetics of Art Deco, Streamline, and Moderne design. Architects, interior designers, and period craftspeople fancifully applied Pueblo Deco details to a wide range of buildings in cities and towns throughout the Southwest and as far away as New York City. In this delightful survey of the style, acclaimed architectural writer/photographer Carla Breeze recorded some of Pueblo Deco's finest examples, including theaters, railroad stations, hotels, courthouses and civic buildings, retail stors and trading posts, residential buildings, and many others.

Carla Breeze is a New York City-based architectural writer and photographer. Born in New Mexico, she has been fascinated by the Pueblo Deco style since childhood, when she first laid eyes on Albuquerque's fabulous KiMo movie theater.
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Anyone who loves the designs of Southwest Native American or of the Art Deco period will drool over the contents of this quite interesting book. Breeze uses her photographic expertise to zoom in on the hand-made details of numerous buildings. Dozens of her color photographs are augmented by knowledgeable writing. Highly recommended for students of the period.

Throughout the 1600s settlers from central Mexico migrated north into today's New Mexico, settling along the Rio Grande where the Pueblo Indians had long resided. With them came Franciscan friars whose chief goal was to convert the Pueblos to Christianity and establish missions. Two main practices leveled against the Indians that fostered resentment and eventual rebellion was the encomienda (forcing the Indians to pay tribute to the Spaniards, usually in maize or manual labor) and the friars' insistence on the Indians abandoning totally their native religious ceremonies (the kiva, for instance) and adopting Christian ways. Abuses developed in both practices until a unified uprising among the Indians against the settlers occurred in 1680, where hundreds of colonists and over 20 friars were killed, and thereby emptying the province of all Spanish settlers. Property and churches were destroyed by the Indians, and for 12 years the Pueblos were free from Spanish rule, even presence.

In 1692, however, under the leadership of Diego de Vargas, the Spaniards returned, and over the next few years, using mainly diplomacy but also arms when necessary, re-established their authority. Churches and missions were rebuilt and Santa Fe (pretty much in ruins) was forcefully retaken from the Indians. Many of the Indians were still resentful, of course, and by 1696 another revolt was in the making. As time went on, the Friars became very much aware of this imminent rebellion and wrote letters to Vargas pleading for better military security and warning him of the dangers that were brewing. This book collects a number of those letters, and to read them is to feel the despair felt by the friars; some prepared themselves for martyrdom. Open rebellion erupted in June 1696 (some of the atrocities suffered by the friars are revealed in further letters collected here), but swift action by Vargas and a less-than-unified Indian action ended the revolt by late summer, with Spanish control assured.

The book consists of a long and very useful historical introduction about life along the northern Rio Grande up to 1700, and sections of letters written mostly by the friars and missionaries concerning the re-establishment of the missions after 1692, the warnings and pleas to Vargas, and then first-hand accounts of the revolt of 1696 itself. Most of the letters and documents come from archival repositories in Mexico City and Spain. It's a fascinating account and the immediacy of the dangers felt by the writers, even to the point of assuming their own deaths as they performed their sacred duties, packs quite an emotional wallop. Highly recommended to anyone interested in the Spanish-Indian relationship in early New Mexico.