Sun Tracks Four: Native American Perspectives ed. by Larry Evers et al.

Abstract

Reviews 375 Sun Tracks Four: Native American Perspectives. Edited by Larry Evers, et al. (Tucson: Sun Tracks, 1978. 89 pages, $5.00.) Now an annual publication begun as a quarterly in an oral history project, Sun Tracks is a striking example of a quality literary magazine produced on a shoe-string budget. Though the volume is edited by a student and faculty board at the University of Arizona and serves as a source of expression for native students at that campus, it also manages to attract writing from the very finest Native American fictionists, poets, and social critics. For example, an earlier issue, Volume 2, Number 2 (Spring 1976), featured Paula Gunn Allen, Charles Ballard, N. Scott Momaday, Simon J. Ortiz, Carter Revard, and Ray Young Bear, among others. This latest issue is begun with a superb poem, “Skeleton Fixer’s Story,” by Leslie Silko and concluded by a revealing interview with Vine Deloria, Jr. Between are sandwiched a number of fine poems, a play, stories, a brief autobiography, and an extended photographic section, whose materials were selected from a Native American Photography Workshop now in its sixth year at Phoenix. Consequently, a real diversity of perspectives, as the subtitle for this year’s volume suggests, is expressed in writing, graphics, and photographs. This is easily the most handsome yet of any Sun Tracks issue and its overall quality, I think, justifies the editorialboard’sdecision to change from a quarterly to an annual publication. Sun Tracks in many ways indicates that the contemporary Indian is an apt metaphor for the white American who has been alienated from both his traditions and community and then thrust into a world of unpredictable and volatile change. And the very fact that native peoples have resisted so long, albeit with staggering costs, the depersonalizing and desensitizing forces of mass society is a great tribute to the human spirit. One cannot but be impressed with the determination of these literary representatives to retain their sensitivity to the sacred land and its creatures, to practice their rich and well-tested talent for communitarian living, and to feel compassion for those who blindly work to destroy the very cultural system capable of bringing a worthy civilization to America. No one interested in what today’s native people are doing, saying, or feeling can afford to bypass Sun Tracks. Fortunately for newcomers to the magazine, a number of back issues are still available at$2.00apiece. They are worth a good deal more than that. JACK L. DAVIS, University of Idaho ...