Boundaries Between: The Southern Paiutes, 1775-1995

Description

Boundaries Between skillfully relates the history of the Southern Paiutes from their first contacts with Europeans through the end of the twentieth century. In an engaging style| Martha C. Knack combines contemporary oral histories| meticulous archival research| original ethnographic fieldwork| and an astute critical perspective on Indian-white relations. Before the arrival of European Americans| Southern Paiutes foraged the arid hills and valleys of the area known today as southern Utah| northern Arizona| southern Nevada| and southeastern California. By all the “rules” of history and anthropology| such a small-scale| foraging culture should have disappeared long ago| but the Southern Paiutes survive| and their story unsettles assumptions about the role that social complexity| power| and culture play in the dynamics of human history. Martha C. Knack is Distinguished Professor of Anthropology at the University of Nevada| Las Vegas. She is the coauthor of As Long as the River Shall Run: An Ethnohistory of Pyramid Lake Reservation and coeditor of Native Americans and Wage Labor: Ethnohistorical Perspectives.