ISBN: Ostalo
Godina izdanja: 1970.
Jezik: Engleski
Autor: Strani

The Navajos: The Past and Present of a Great People / John Upton Terrell


Navaho indijanci: prošlost i sadašnjost velikog naroda



Njujork, SAD 1970. Tvrd povez, zaštitni omot, engleski jezik, VIII + 310 strana.
Napomena: na predlistu pečat prethodnog vlasnika; knjiga je veoma dobro / odlično očuvana.
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The Navajos are the largest Indian tribe in the United States today, numbering some 125,000 people. The Navajo endured centuries of hardship and exploitation at the hands of various enemies — Pueblos, Utes, Comanches, the Spanish and the Mexicans — but it was the westward-moving American white man who waged a war upon the Navajo more fierce and devastating than any other. Author John Upton Terrell recounts a proud and turbulent history.
Some six hundred years ago the early Navajos journeyed southward from Colorado and eastward from the Pacific Ocean to take possession of the beautiful canyons and mesas of northwestern New Mexico. These people were an ambitious tribe—hunters, fishermen, food gatherers—and daring raiders. Their loot was cultural as well as material, for they gained from the Pueblos the arts of agriculture and architecture. From the Span iard the Navajo learned the use of the gun and the versatility of the horse. Although the early Mexican often robbed the Navajo of his animals and sometimes his children, the Navajos survived defeat after defeat to eventually become the indestructible lords of New Mexico.
Eventually, only the westering Americans could bring down the Navajos. Viewing them as savages who had to be subjugated, the men of the Union Army declared constant war on the Navajo. Those who survived inhabited the first reservation at Bosque Redondo, ironically established by President Lincoln, who at the same time was freeing the slaves.
Only since the administration of Franklin D. Roosevelt, and his special assistants who understood the Navajo, has the government in Washington seen that the road to peace lies not in annihilating the Navajo but in educating him; not in violent, unsuccessful efforts to make him a `red American` but in salvaging his identity and especially his dignity.
John Upton Terrell shatters the myth that red men can be remade in white face. The author reveals how the American government`s initial efforts to civilize the Navajo resulted in traumatizing him. More importantly, Terrell discloses the poverty and potential of Navajo life today and the programs for tomorrow in which the Navajos emerge as one of the most progressive and prosperous Indian tribes in the nation.