Book Review: Powwow

Powwow invites readers into the dancing circle where a cornucopia of information, analysis, and interpretation vibrates, telling us about the popular intertribal celebration. The topic of American Indian powwows creates strong emotions and colorful stories, and the editors invite several authors into the dance arena of this book to share their research and experiences. As a result, readers will hear the drum, see traditional and fancy dancers, smell the sizzling fry bread, and feel the spirit that is the American Indian powwow. The editors point out that powwows vary in size from the larger Red Earth gathering on the Great Plains with its big money prizes for dancers and drummers to smaller family and social powwow celebrations. The editors and authors point out the common characteristics of powwows, including the grand entry, prayers, flag songs, intertribal dances, giveaways, honors, and specials, but they also argue that powwows are not static but ever-changing, evolving, and negotiated. Some of the authors view the powwow as a pan-Indian phenomenon, while others point out tribal and group nuances that make powwows unique

Invisible Enemies: Ranching, Farming, and Quechan Indian Deaths at the Fort Yuma Agency, California, 1915–1925

The Colorado River weaves its course like a snake, moving south through the desert along the present-day borders of California and Arizona. Just north of the communities of Yuma and Winterhaven, the river turns abruptly west and flows toward a solitary and rocky mountain called Pilot Knob. The river swings south at a right angle, cutting a natural border between Baja California and Arizona, and continues its journey to the Sea of Cortez. Since the time of emergence when Kwikumat created the earth and Kumastamxo put the world into motion, this region of southeastern California has been the home of Quechan Indians. In the 1770s and 1780s, their lives were interrupted briefly by two expeditions of Captain Juan Bautista de Anza, the missionizing activities of Fray Francisco Garces, and the civil settlement of Alferez Santiago de Islas. The Quechan rose in a rebellion to expel Spanish soldiers, settlers, and missionaries, and after the 1780s Spain's agents never returned to resettle among the Quechan. The Indians were affected far more adversely by soldiers, settlers, miners, ranchers, farmers, and agents from the United States. Much has been written about the impact of the white invasion of Quechan in the nineteenth century in terms of war, land, and sovereignty, but little is available regarding the ill effects of the reservation on Native health or the relationship of non-Indian ranching and farming on Quechans in the early twentieth century

Serra's Legacy: The Desecration of American Indian Burials at Mission San Diego

As dusk fell on the evening of 4 August 1989, several Indians gathered in the courtyard of Mission San Diego. They congregated on the east side of the mission grounds near a visit a that had been built earlier that day. Inside the brush lodge, a few Indians and a priest prepared to light candles and say a rosary. One of the Indians attending the ceremony wandered off to be alone and pray. He walked into a sandy, barren Indian cemetery pocked here and there with holes and piles of earth. He stood on the south end of the holy ground to pray and to place an offering into the earth for the spirits of those Indians who had been disturbed. The sacred offering of native sage, tan sinew, and blackbird feathers was left at the site of an unfortunate event-the exhumation of approximately sixty Indian people by the Catholic church to make way for a new parish hall. The evening ceremony and night-long vigil of Kumeyaay Indians and their friends marked the beginning of the end of a heated dispute between the Indians of San Diego and the Catholic church. The controversy had begun nearly a quarter of a century before, when the parish church at Mission San Diego and the University of San Diego, a Catholic institution, began an archaeological dig on mission grounds. Professors, staff, and students at the University of San Diego inaugurated an archaeological project in 1966. Over the years, many students participated in the digs, uncovering an untold number of artifacts and pieces of bone, including those of humans. However, the church and the university repeatedly denied publicly that any human remains had ever been uncovered, despite the fact that one of the first priests-probably Luis Jayme-and at least eight soldiers of the United States Army had been unearthed. Significantly, this denial would lead church authorities and some scholars associated with the University of San Diego to claim publicly that the area of the proposed building site contained no ”cultural remains.