Lummis in the Pueblos by Patrick T. Houlihan and Betsy E. Houlihan

Abstract

264 Western American Literature painters who envision cannot adequately sentimentalize without losing original purpose. In addition, early writers who dealt with Yosemite fall into absolute response categories: realism devoid of feeling or sentiment devoid of actuality. Robertson’smost intriguing chapters delve into the photographic response to Yosemite, including such varied responses as Garleton Watkins’ “monu­ mental approach to ... a monumental place”; Arthur Phillsbury’s unimposing stance that allows the tourist a way into the grandeur; George Fiske’s prints that come “down from the heights to the level of ordinary people” ; and Ansel Adams’ works that “glorified the valley” while satisfying “our desire for realism.” Yosemite, east of Eden, is a place of human consequence, a place secular­ ized by artists and writers challenged by its scope to subdue it through an artistic manifest destiny. Yosemite, west of Eden, however, is an “experience in and with Wilderness,” the experienced toward which the art of Yosemite propels us. PAMELA R. HOWELL Midland College Lummis in the Pueblos. By Patrick T. Houlihan and Betsy E. Houlihan. (Flag­ staff: Northland Press, 1986. 156 pages, $19.95 paper.) The Houlihans have selected from the Southwest Museum’s collections some 114 turn-of-the-century photographs to illustrate the work of Charles F. Lummis among the Pueblo Indians. Many of us think of Lummis as editor, author, poet, historian, and archeologist (and, yes, eccentric) before we think of him as photographer, but he was that, too. Lummis was fully aware that we live history, and was eager to record that history as it slipped away. This book shows him in the attempt. Three photos show him literally—the shadow of photographer and camera intrude. It may be significant that one of these is the frontispiece, another the back cover. Certainly Lummis’ responses were generally more important to him than aesthetic values. He allowed photographs to be issued in postcard form with crude, obtrusive lettering, showing that he, at least, did not consider them “high art.” Editorial selection influences one’s view of an artist (or author), though from my own impressions of Lummis’ originals, the Houlihans have “played fair.” Some of the 16 pueblos treated here in 15 separate chapters are shown in external views only, but where Lummis spent the most time and took the most (and generally best) photographs—Isleta, above all—the Houlihans have rightly given us closeups of structures and especially people. Surely it was the Reviews 265 people “in the Pueblos” who counted most with historian Lummis. He does show them in portrait studies (such as that on the cover), but chiefly in their daily activities, for which we can be grateful. The photographic process must have demanded posing, but we often forget this as we share the photographer’s interest and concentration. ARTHUR FRIETZSCHE San Luis Obispo Wolf and the Winds. By Frank Bird Linderman, Introduction by Hugh Demp­ sey. (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1986. 215 pages, $16.95.) Frank Bird Linderman, a Montanan from the age of sixteen, began writ­ ing in 1915 about the Indians among whom he had lived. During his lifetime he published many books and stories. This novel, however, written in 1938, was never published until now, due to an apparent shift in popular literary taste of the times. Wolf, a young Gros Ventre, seeks and receives a vision. His mother, Small-Voice, dreams at Wolf’s birth, but due to custom keeps the essence of the dream to herself. Wolf sees what other visionaries among Native Ameri­ cans saw in those troubling years, the destruction of the Buffalo and the decline of his people. Wolf and his medicineman ally, Black-Tongue, interpret the vision/dream as a warning. They decide that to save themselves they must cease trading with white men. Few of their contemporaries heed their warn­ ings, however, although Wolf and his wife, Breath-Feather, remain true to the vision until Wolf’s death by starvation as an old man at Fort Belknap. The main characters in Wolf and the Winds who chose to believe in Wolf’s vision also chose to interpret it as a warning. Wolf seemed to believe that having had a vision, the solution to present...