Sandefur, Gary D.

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UCLAAmerican Indian Culture and Research Journal TitleWater and Poverty in the Southwest. By F. Lee Brown and Helen M. Ingram.Permalinkhttps://escholarship.org/uc/item/9860f8ckJournalAmerican Indian Culture and Research Journal , 11(4)ISSN0161-6463AuthorSandefur, Gary D.Publication Date1987-09-01DOI10.17953Copyright InformationThis work is made available under the terms of a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial License, availalbe at https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/eScholarship.org Powered by the California Digital LibraryUniversity of CaliforniaReviews 103 . . . the second . . . is the presumed cannibalism. The only evi- dence for cannibalism at Aztalan is that some broken human bones were foundin . . . refuse pits . . . thereisagreat dealof misunderstanding and oversimplification about what these bones might mean . . . many societies ’process’ the bodies of their dead . . . some parts may be curated or kept for years before burial, while other parts are discarded . . . a common practice . . . well documented for both Late Woodland and Mississippian societies . . . there is no clear evidence of cannibalism at Aztalan . . .”. Review space constraints do not allow for more examples from the other seven chapters of this book, which is based largely on biased, inaccurate, or out-moded secondary sources. John F. Boatman University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Water and Poverty in the Southwest. By F. Lee Brown and Helen M. Ingram. Tucson: The University of Arizona Press, 1987. 226 pp. $19.95 Cloth. $12.95 Paper. Water and Poverty in the Southwest examines the political and le- gal complexities of water usage in the Upper Rio Grande Valley in New Mexico and southern Arizona. More specifically it looks at these complexities from the point of view of the impoverished people who have traditionally relied on this water for support of their lives and chlture: the Hispanics in the Upper Rio Grande and the Tohono O’odham Nation (formerly known as the Papa- gos) of southern Arizona. The first three chapters discuss de- velopment and growth in the Southwest, the different cultural and economic views of water that enter into debates in that area, and the general water problems facing the Southwest, especially Arizona and New Mexico. Chapters 4 through 8 present a case study of the water situation in the Upper Rio Grande with a spe- cial emphasis on the role of water in the lives of Hispanics in that area. These chapters also tell us how non-Hispanic whites and Indians in the area view the water situation, and how these views sometimes lead to conflict. Chapters 9 through 14 present a case study of water usage by the Tohono O’odham Indian Nation. 104 AMERICAN INDIAN CULTURE AND RESEARCH JOURNAL These chapters present the Indian point of view, but also ex- amine the views and actions of the federal government, state government, local governments, and private individuals and or- ganizations. The final two chapters compare the two case studies and use the results of these analyses to suggest strategies for the Hispanics in New Mexico and the Tohono O’odham Nation to use in regards to water in the future. In general, the authors pro- pose what they refer to as activist strategies for using the politi- cal and legal systems to take advantage of water as a scarce resource in the Southwest. This is an interesting and valuable book for individuals who are interested in raciallethnic groups andlor disadvantaged groups, but have no expertise in water issues (such as myself). I feel that I learned a good deal about water issues in the South- west from reading the book. These are certainly important issues. Water is one of the most valuable resources in the Southwest, and continued growth and prosperity of the region depends on the availability of water to support a growing population and new industries. Impoverished long-term residents of the region are in a position to take advantage of their control over some of the existing water supply, if they can learn how to use the po- litical and legal systems to do so. The book does a very nice job of outlining the demands on the water supply created by tradi- tional and modern agriculture and the growth of large metropoli- tan areas. It also gives a good analysis (again from a layman’s point of view) of the historical development of water rights, the legal complexities, and the current legal problems. The book also does a good job in presenting (and evoking em- pathy with) the way in which water is viewed and used in the traditional Hispanic and Tohono O’odham cultures and systems of agriculture. By presenting both the legal situation and tradi- tional views and uses of water, the authors make it possible to understand how conflict and misunderstanding over water was inevitable. The major weakness in the book is that it tells us very little about poverty in the Southwest. I think the title of the book is somewhat misleading since it suggests that poverty will be a cen- tral focus. Only a few tables and figures and very little of the text actually talk about poverty. Poor people enter into the book only in that the authors argue that the poor can use water as a means for improving their economic status. Readers who pick up the Reviews 105 book in hopes of learning something about the conditions fac- ing poor people in the Southwest (e.g., housing, education, health) will be disappointed. I don’t want to end my review on this negative note since I think the book is an important and valuable contribution to our understanding of the use of natural resources by Indians and Hispanics in contemporary American society. Scholars who study Indians and Hispanic andlor the contemporary Southwest will benefit from reading the book. Parts of it are also appropri- ate for courses at both the undergraduate and graduate levels. Gary D. Sundefur University of Wisconsin-Madison Bibliography of the Catawba. Compiled and annotated by Thomas J. Blumer. Native American Bibliography Series, No. 10. Metuchen, N.J., and London: The Scarecrow Press, Inc., 1987. 502 pp. $55.00 Cloth. Thomas J. Blumer’s Bibliography of the Cutuwbu is a major step toward rescuing the Catawba Indian Nation from an undeserved historical obscurity. These Indians have lived in the Carolina piedmont for centuries, withstanding the European invasion of America to remain in their homeland up to the present day. Though disease and warfare reduced the Nation’s numbers to a few hundred by the end of the eighteenth century, during most of the colonial period the British considered Catawbas one of the four most important native groups in the southeast. At least three colonies courted them, and Indians as far away as the Great Lakes feared them. And yet this long-running, often prominent role in the history of the region has earned Catawbas little atten- tion from historians. In part the scholarly silence arises from a general and unfortunate indifference toward all of the native groups in the eastern United States that escaped removal beyond the Mississippi River. In part, too, however,. the neglect stems from a widespread assumptin that the sources are too few to sup- port extensive inquiries into Catawba history. Blumer can do nothing to overcome the prejudice against studying Indians who remained behind the frontier. But his bib- liographic labors throughly undermine any assumption about a 

Water and Poverty in the Southwest. By F. Lee Brown and Helen M. Ingram.

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