In this illuminating book, anthropologist Kirstin Erickson explains how members of the Yaqui tribe, an indigenous group in northern Mexico, construct, negotiate, and continually reimagine their ethnic identity. She examines two interconnected dimensions of the Yaqui ethnic imagination: the simultaneous processes of place making and identification, and the inseparability of ethnicity from female-identified spaces, roles, and practices. Yaquis live in a portion of their ancestral homeland in Sonora, about 250 miles south of the Arizona border. A long history of displacement and ethnic struggle continues to shape the Yaqui sense of self, as Erickson discovered during the sixteen months that she lived in Potam, one of the eight historic Yaqui pueblos. She found that themes of identity frequently arise in the stories that Yaquis tell and that geography and location—space and place—figure prominently in their narratives. Revisiting Edward Spicer’s groundbreaking anthropological study of the Yaquis of Potam pueblo undertaken more than sixty years ago, Erickson pays particular attention to the “cultural work” performed by Yaqui women today. She shows that by reaffirming their gendered identities and creating and occupying female-gendered spaces such as kitchens, household altars, and domestic ceremonial spaces, women constitute Yaqui ethnicity in ways that are as significant as actions taken by males in tribal leadership and public ceremony. This absorbing study contributes new empirical knowledge about a Native American community as it adds to the growing anthropology of space/place and gender. By inviting readers into the homes and patios where Yaqui women discuss their lives, it offers a highly personalized account of how they construct—and reconstruct—their identity.

In 1600 they were the largest, most technologically advanced indigenous group in northwest Mexico, but today, though their descendants presumably live on in Sonora, almost no one claims descent from the Ópatas. The Ópatas seem to have “disappeared” as an ethnic group, their languages forgotten except for the names of the towns, plants, and geography of the Opatería, where they lived. Why did the Ópatas disappear from the historical record while their neighbors survived? David Yetman, a leading ethnobotanist who has traveled extensively in Sonora, consulted more than two hundred archival sources to answer this question. The result is an accessible ethnohistory of the Ópatas, one that embraces historical complexity with an eye toward Opatan strategies of resistance and assimilation. Yetman’s account takes us through the Opatans’ initial encounters with the conquistadors, their resettlement in Jesuit missions, clashes with Apaches, their recruitment as miners, and several failed rebellions, and ultimately arrives at an explanation for their “disappearance.” Yetman’s account is bolstered by conversations with present-day residents of the Opatería and includes a valuable appendix on the languages of the Opatería by linguistic anthropologist David Shaul. One of the few studies devoted exclusively to this indigenous group, The Ópatas: In Search of a Sonoran People marks a significant contribution to the literature on the history of the greater Southwest.

An anthology of writings by contemporary Native American authors on the theme of home places, including stories from oral traditions, autobiographical writings, songs, and poems.

nguage, and culture intact.

This is a print on demand edition of a hard to find publication. Explores whether sufficient data exists to examine the temporal and spatial relationships that existed in terrorist group planning, and if so, could patterns of preparatory conduct be identified? About one-half of the terrorists resided, planned, and prepared for terrorism relatively close to their eventual target. The terrorist groups existed for 1,205 days from the first planning meeting to the date of the actual/planned terrorist incident. The planning process for specific acts began 2-3 months prior to the terrorist incident. This study examined selected terrorist groups/incidents in the U.S. from 1980-2002. It provides for the potential to identify patterns of conduct that might lead to intervention prior to the commission of the actual terrorist incidents. Illustrations.

The border region of the Sonoran Desert, which spans southern Arizona in the United States and northern Sonora, Mexico, has attracted national and international attention. But what is less discussed in national discourses is the impact of current border policies on the Native peoples of the region. There are twenty-six tribal nations recognized by the U.S. federal government in the southern border region and approximately eight groups of Indigenous peoples in the United States with historical ties to Mexico—the Yaqui, the O’odham, the Cocopah, the Kumeyaay, the Pai, the Apaches, the Tiwa (Tigua), and the Kickapoo. Divided Peoples addresses the impact border policies have on traditional lands and the peoples who live there—whether environmental degradation, border patrol harassment, or the disruption of traditional ceremonies. Anthropologist Christina Leza shows how such policies affect the traditional cultural survival of Indigenous peoples along the border. The author examines local interpretations and uses of international rights tools by Native activists, counterdiscourse on the U.S.-Mexico border, and challenges faced by Indigenous border activists when communicating their issues to a broader public. Through ethnographic research with grassroots Indigenous activists in the region, the author reveals several layers of division—the division of Indigenous peoples by the physical U.S.-Mexico border, the divisions that exist between Indigenous perspectives and mainstream U.S. perspectives regarding the border, and the traditionalist/nontraditionalist split among Indigenous nations within the United States. Divided Peoples asks us to consider the possibilities for challenging settler colonialism both in sociopolitical movements and in scholarship about Indigenous peoples and lands.

In this groundbreaking book, the first Navajo to earn a doctorate in history seeks to rewrite Navajo history. Reared on the Navajo Nation in New Mexico and Arizona, Jennifer Nez Denetdale is the great-great-great-granddaughter of a well-known Navajo chief, Manuelito (1816–1894), and his nearly unknown wife, Juanita (1845–1910). Stimulated in part by seeing photographs of these ancestors, she began to explore her family history as a way of examining broader issues in Navajo historiography. Here she presents a thought-provoking examination of the construction of the history of the Navajo people (Diné, in the Navajo language) that underlines the dichotomy between Navajo and non-Navajo perspectives on the Diné past. Reclaiming Diné History has two primary objectives. First, Denetdale interrogates histories that privilege Manuelito and marginalize Juanita in order to demonstrate some of the ways that writing about the Diné has been biased by non-Navajo views of assimilation and gender. Second, she reveals how Navajo narratives, including oral histories and stories kept by matrilineal clans, serve as vehicles to convey Navajo beliefs and values. By scrutinizing stories about Juanita, she both underscores the centrality of women’s roles in Navajo society and illustrates how oral tradition has been used to organize social units, connect Navajos to the land, and interpret the past. She argues that these same stories, read with an awareness of Navajo creation narratives, reveal previously unrecognized Navajo perspectives on the past. And she contends that a similarly culture-sensitive re-viewing of the Diné can lead to the production of a Navajo-centered history.