BOOKSHELF

BOOKSHELF YAQUI DEER SONGS/ MASO BWIKAM,

by Larry Evers and Felipe S. Molina. University of Arizona Press, 1615 E. Speedway, Tucson, AZ 85719. 1987. 239 pages. $32.50 hardcover, $16.95 softcover, plus $1.00 postage.

Unless you live in central or southern Arizona or in the neighboring Mexican state of Sonora, chances are you may not have heard of the Yaqui Indians. Yet, today there are more than 30,000 of them in northern Mexico and the United States. These Native Americans had their first contact with Europeans in their territory along the Rio Yaqui in the 16th century, a hostile meeting that resulted in the defeat of the Spaniards. For hundreds of years, the Yaquis fiercely protected their tribal identity, successfully repulsing efforts by the Spanish and later the Mexican government to subjugate them. By 1890, however, thousands had been deported to southern Mexico while others fled as political refugees to the United States. Today there are more than ten Yaqui settlements near Tucson and three near Phoenix and Yuma, and some Yaquis are even living in the Los Angeles area. As the late Edward Spicer - their eminent anthropolog ical biographer-said, they live as "an enduring people" struggling to "maintain their identity despite almost overwhelming pressures to submerge it." This identity is most visible to outsiders in the Yaqui religion, a blend of native and Christian elements that has its greatest

YAQUI DEER SONGS MASO BWIKAM

expression in the 40 days preceding Easter. The Yaqui deer dance and its accompanying songs detailed in this book are not religious but rather a ritual of animal representations, a remnant of several other animal dances that existed as late as the 1870s. The deer songs have rightly been described as Native American poetry set to the music of rattle, rasp, and water drum. Thus, the book provides us with an appreciation of this unfamiliar art form and allows the reader a fine cross-cultural experience. The authors, one an Anglo professor of English at the University of Arizona, the other a Yaqui deer singer from the vil lage of Yoem near Tucson, have presented in English and Yaqui translation not only a large compendium of these songs but an explanation of their important role in the Yaqui value system as well. As such, they beautifully reveal Yaqui conceptions of the nature of wilderness. A cassette recording of many of the songs is available from the University Press for $5.95. This important adjunct adds greatly to the reader's (and listener's) understanding. I should also make another suggestion: for a more rounded treatment of Yaqui life that will put the deer songs in their cultural context, read Spicer's The Yaquis: A Cultural History, published by the University of Arizona Press in 1980; it's the ultimate, highly readable treatise on these Indians. -Robert C. Euler

ARIZONA HANDBOOK,

by Bill Weir. Moon Publications, Box 1696, Chico, CA 95927. 1986. 448 pages. $10.95 softcover, plus $2.50 postage. The volume and detail of useful facts within this guidebook are beyond comprehension. In this sturdy little book, measuring 714 by 5 inches, is Arizona. Nearly all of itthe character, the climate, the history, the attractions, together with the directions, hours, even phone numbers. If you live in, visit, or explore Arizona, this meticulously researched handbook will furnish you a wealth of information. Fine organization, extensive maps and illustrations, plus an excellent index make Arizona Handbook a joy to use.

RHYMES OF THE RANGES,

by Bruce Kiskaddon; edited by Hal Cannon. Peregrine Smith Books, Box 667, Layton, Utah 84041. 1986. 136 pages. $14.95 hardcover, plus $1.50 postage and bandling.

Bruce Kiskaddon rode away from the fire 37 years ago. He hired out as a cowboy in southern Colorado in 1898 and worked on various ranches in the Southwest for the next 25 years. He went to Hollywood in the 1920s "to make money in the movies," and spent the last years of his life as a bellman in a Los Angeles hotel. There he remembered, and there he wrote the poems about the life he had lived. Kiskaddon's poems are honest, authentic, and superb. They appeared regularly in the publication Western Livestock, and during the 1920s and 30s, the Lily-white Company of the Los Angeles Stockyards printed Kiskaddon's poetry, illustrated by Katherine Field, every month as an advertising calendar. The poems and Field's illustrations were as valued as an N. Porter saddle. There is no shortage of cowboy poetry, but very little of it contains the artistry and honesty of the poems of Bruce Kiskaddon.