The Columbia Guide to American Indians of the Southwest

A major work on the history and culture of Southwest Indians, The Columbia Guide to American Indians of the Southwest tells a remarkable story of cultural continuity in the face of migration, displacement, violence, and loss. The Native peoples of the American Southwest are a unique group, for while the arrival of Europeans forced many Native Americans to leave their land behind, those who lived in the Southwest held their ground. Many still reside in their ancestral homes, and their oral histories, social practices, and material artifacts provide revelatory insight into the history of the region and the country as a whole.Trudy Griffin-Pierce incorporates her lifelong passion for the people of the Southwest, especially the Navajo, into an absorbing narrative of pre- and post-contact Native experiences. She finds that, even though the policies of the U.S. government were meant to promote assimilation, Native peoples have formed their own responses to outside pressures, choosing to adapt rather than to submit to external change. Griffin-Pierce provides a chronology of instances that have shaped present-day conditions in the region, as well as an extensive glossary of significant people, places, and events. Setting a precedent for ethical scholarship, she describes different methods for researching the Southwest and cites sources for further archaeological and comparative study. Completing the volume is a selection of key primary documents, literary works, films, Internet resources, and contact information for each Native community, enabling a more thorough investigation of specific tribes and nations.The Columbia Guides to American Indian History and Culture also include:The Columbia Guide to American Indians of the Great Plains, Loretta Fowler; The Columbia Guide to American Indians of the Northeast, Kathleen J. Bragdon; The Columbia Guide to American Indians of the Southeast, Theda Perdue and Michael D. Green and the forthcoming titles:The Columbia Guide to American Indians of California, Lee Davis; The Columbia Guide to American Indians of the Northwest, Robert Boyd.

Trudy Griffin-Pierce (1949-2009) was an associate professor of anthropology at the University of Arizona. She is the author of Native Peoples of the Southwest; Earth Is My Mother, Sky Is My Father: Space, Time, and Astronomy in Navajo Sandpainting; and Native Americans: Enduring Cultures and Traditions, and contributed a chapter to National Geographic`s Peoples of the World. Her research focused on the Apachean peoples, especially the Navajo, which led her into the field of anthropology.