Review

Author(s): Nancy J. Parezo

Review by: Nancy J. Parezo
Source: American Indian Quarterly, Vol. 8, No. 3 (Summer, 1984), pp. 256-258
Published by: University of Nebraska Press
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1183948
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256 AMERICANINDIAN QUARTERLY,
SUMMER 1984

cultivators of corn, beans, squash and pumpkins. It seemed a comfortable

life as the Indians adapted well to their arid environment.
At the end of the Mexican Warthe United States acquired the southwestern
area and the Jicarilla became dependents of the new jurisdiction. It was an
uneasy relationship characterized by misunderstandings and rigidity of prac-
tices. In the long run the whites used force to secure the lands they desired
and seemed indifferentto the Indianpredicament.With the arrivalof acquisitive
miners and businessmen, the Jicarilla were unable to support themselves
which left the natives no alternative but dependency on a ration system.
The passage of the Dawes Act in 1887 resulted in economic hardship and
retarded social progress for the Jicarillas. Private ownership of land was not
the answer. The introduction of stock raising proved helpful but the cattle
industry did not flourish as the sheep industry had. Only with the production
of oil and gas would the Jicarillas partially solve their problem of dependency
on the federal government.
The Jicarillas continued to survive but the struggle was tedious. The
population count dropped from the eight hundreds to the five hundreds during
the first twenty-five years of the new century with tuberculosis taking a great
toll. The decline in agriculture and the lack of modern medical staff and
facilities also proved significant.
A gradual comeback by the Jicarillas began in the 1920'sand accelerated
in the 1930's with the passage of the Indian Reorganization Act. The new
legislation provided for a larger, communally-owned land base, political
emancipation, and growth in Indian values through improved educational
opportunities. AfterWorldWarII the Jicarillas continued to grow in the areas
of economics and education. A solid partnership between the natives and the
Bureau of Indian Affairs has facilitated this progress.
Tiller'sbook is a fine addition to the growing number of currently available
tribal histories. It is handsomely published and embellished with excellent
pictures. She has expertly covered the Americanphase of the Jicarillaexperience
showing the impact that federal Indian policy had on the natives. This work
makes a fine companion piece with Delores Gunnerson'svolume on the earlier
history of the Jicarilla Apaches.
Carthage College John W Bailey

Washburn, Dorothy K., ed. Hopi Kachina, Spirit ofLife. San Francisco:
California Academy of Sciences, 1980. 158 pp. Illustrations, bib-
liography. $15.00.
Hopi Kachina, Spirit of Life, is a catalogue designed to accompany and
supplement a major exhibition of Hopi life organized by Dr.DorothyWashburn
of the California Academy of Sciences. This important exhibition, which was
staged as part of the Hopi Tricentennial in 1980, stressed the world view,
symbolism, and religious observances of the Hopi. This was accomplished
by analyzing in detail the concept of the kachinas, beings who are, as Emory
Sekaquaptewa points out in the Prologue to the catalogue, active teachers

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 BOOK REVIEWS 257

for the Hopi. It was the goal of the exhibition and catalogue to teach outsiders,
by visual, oral, and verbal means, the basics of the Hopi world view and its
complexities. What is conveyed is how the Hopi view themselves and wish
to be viewed by others. The scheme of the exhibit and catalogue is both
philosophical and historical; the approach combines both emic and etic per-
spectives.
The catalogue, like the exhibition, was a collaborative effort between
Hopi leaders and scholars. The articles were written by men and women who
have spent years in an attempt to understand the Hopi way of life and convey
this understanding to non-Hopi. The articles are summaries for nonspecialists
of excellent research published previously for professional audiences. Watson
Smith writes succinctly on Hopi kiva murals; John Connelly delineates the
basics of Hopi social organization; J.J. Brody writes a concise essay on the
development of Hopi painting; and John and Clara Lee Tanner present re-
capitulations of their work on Hopi crafts. DorothyWashburntakes a successful
first stab at understanding Hopi culture by briefly outlining and analyzing
beliefs concerning kachinas and their place in Hopi culture. Each article is
filled with photographs that show how the objects in the exhibition were
used in daily life or on ceremonial occasions. Following the text are a number
of plates and photographs showing the individual pieces, arranged in the
order in which the visitor saw them in the exhibit. Each legend contains
information quite useful to specialists in material culture.
The most important essay for professional readers who are familiar with
the literature on Hopi culture, is Charles Adams and Deborah Hull's "The
Prehistoric and Historic Occupation of the Hopi Mesas" which presents pre-
viously unpublished information. The article can be divided into three parts.
The first is a useful summary of the prehistory of the Hopi Mesas to 1690.
Interestingly and in keeping with the general theme of the volume, the authors
choose the arrival of the Kachina Cult, ca. 1350-1400, as the point where the
inhabitants of the mesa can be identified as "Hopi." Evidence for the cult is
based on changes in ceramic design and kiva murals, a topic which Watson
Smith expands upon in the next chapter. The second section deals with the
period from 1690 to 1870 and is particularly valuable because it (like the
information presented in the third section) is based on data collected during
the Museum of Northern Arizona'sproject at Walpi from 1975 to 1977. Little
of this information has been published because of the objection of several
Hopis to publication of the completed report. The second section contains
data on Walpi material culture for the period following the expulsion of the
Spaniards and prior to the beginning of intensive Euro-American influence.
Probably most significant is the record of how Hopi ceramics changed in
response to specific events and episodes in Hopi history: for example, 1781
when many Hopi sought refuge in pueblos to the east in response to drought
and a smallpox epidemic with a resulting influx of new ceramic designs and
forms. The third part, 1870 to the present, contains a rich documentary record
complemented by material culture data from Walpi. A period of intense
"directed culture change," the artifactual record shows the introduction of
such manufactured goods as metal tools and hardware by 1910, of canned
goods, stoves and kitchen utensils by 1940, and plastic utensils, soda pop
bottles, books and Cracker Jack boxes since that date. With the wealth of

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258 AMERICANINDIAN QUARTERLY,
SUMMER 1984

information evident from this project it can only be hoped that the Hopi will
allow us to learn more about their history and culture as they have with their
support of this excellent exhibit and catalogue.

Arizona State Museum Nancy J. Parezo

Kent, Kate Peck. Prehistoric Textilesof the Southwest. School of American

Research Southwest Arts Series. Albuquerque: University of New
Mexico Press, 1983. xx + 315 pp. Illustrations, maps, appendix,
glossary, bibliography, index. $70.00 (cloth).
Most readers of this review will not know that weaving in the Southwest
predates Navajo weaving by more than a millenium; that the Navajo adopted
an ancient tradition. In fact, contemporry Pueblo weaving is unknown to
most, to say nothing of its prehistoric antecedants. One scholar above all has
attempted to rectify this situation, and has published on the Pueblo tradition
for more than 40 years. Kate Kent's most recently published work bears the
results of research that began in 1937, when she was presented with samples
of cotton cloth fragments from Montezuma Castle National Monument for
analysis. At that time, the study of prehistoric weaving was still young, and
primarily the prerogative of archaeologists. Although the fragments were of
interest to archaeology, they were not valued as tools for reconstruction of
the past, if for no other reason than that they did not survive as well as
architecture, ceramics, lithics, and bones. The systematic, intensive study of
thousands of fragments, however, has enabled Kent to say a great deal about
culture contact and society in the prehistoric Southwest.
Her earlier major work, in which much of the present volume had its
roots, appeared as "The Cultivation and Weaving of Cotton in the Prehistoric
Southwestern United States" (Transactionsof theAmericanPhilosophicalSociety
47,3; 1957). What is perhaps as remarkable as the sheer scope and detail of
the earlier work, and equally as true for the present, is the timelessness and
universal applicability of the textile analyses and terminology. Although Irene
Emery's The Primary Structures of Fabrics was far from finished, Emery was
consulted on the terms applied to previously undescribed techniques. In this
unselfish manner, Kent's work became the single great reference on the subject.
The new volume, as mentioned, draws heavily upon the 1957 publication,
but the scope of the study has been expanded to include the preparation,
dyeing, spinning, and weaving of every variety of vegetable fiber and animal
hair. Because the earlier work was devoted solely to loom-woven cotton, the
dates of the present study are pushed back several centuries among, for
example, the Anasazi, who did not weave cotton on a loom until ca. 1100 AD.
The chapters of the book follow an extremely logical sequence, and include
a chapter on the nature of the study of prehistoric textiles, and chapters on
fibers and dyes, nonloom single element weaves (e.g. looping, netting), nonloom
warp-weft weaves, loom-woven fabrics, textile design, the form and function
of fabrics, and a summary of regional and temporal trends.

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