In 1875, a team of cartographers, geologists, and scientists under the direction of Ferdinand V. Hayden entered the Four Corners area for what they thought would be a calm summer's work completing a previous survey. Their accomplishments would go down in history as one of the great American surveying expeditions of the nineteenth century. By skillfully weaving the surveyors' diary entries, field notes, and correspondence with newspaper accounts, historians Robert S. McPherson and Susan Rhoades Neel bring the Hayden Survey to life. Mapping the Four Corners provides an entertaining, engaging narrative of the team's experiences, contextualized with a thoughtful introduction and conclusion. Accompanied by the great photographer William Henry Jackson, Hayden's team quickly found their trip to be more challenging than expected. The travelers describe wrangling half-wild pack mules, trying to sleep in rain-soaked blankets, and making tea from muddy, alkaline water. Along the way, they encountered diverse peoples, evidence of prehistoric civilizations, and spectacular scenery - Hispanic villages in Colorado and New Mexico; Mesa Verde, Hovenweep, and other Anasazi sites; and the Hopi mesas. Not everyone they met was glad to see them: in southeastern Utah surveyors fought and escaped a band of Utes and Paiutes who recognized that the survey meant dispossession from their homeland. Hayden saw his expedition as a scientific endeavor focused on geology, geographic description, cartographic accuracy, and even ethnography, but the search for economic potential was a significant underlying motive. As this book shows, these pragmatic scientists were on the lookout for gold beneath every rock, grazing lands in every valley, and economic opportunity around each bend in the trail. The Hayden Survey ultimately shaped the American imagination in contradictory ways, solidifying the idea of ""progress"" - and government funding of its pursuit - while also revealing, via Jackson's photographs, a landscape with a beauty hitherto unknown and unimagined.

In 1875, a team of cartographers, geologists, and scientists under the direction of Ferdinand V. Hayden entered the Four Corners area for what they thought would be a calm summer's work completing a previous survey. Their accomplishments would go down in history as one of the great American surveying expeditions of the nineteenth century. By skillfully weaving the surveyors' diary entries, field notes, and correspondence with newspaper accounts, historians Robert S. McPherson and Susan Rhoades Neel bring the Hayden Survey to life. Mapping the Four Corners provides an entertaining, engaging narrative of the team's experiences, contextualized with a thoughtful introduction and conclusion. Accompanied by the great photographer William Henry Jackson, Hayden's team quickly found their trip to be more challenging than expected. The travelers describe wrangling half-wild pack mules, trying to sleep in rain-soaked blankets, and making tea from muddy, alkaline water. Along the way, they encountered diverse peoples, evidence of prehistoric civilizations, and spectacular scenery-Hispanic villages in Colorado and New Mexico; Mesa Verde, Hovenweep, and other Anasazi sites; and the Hopi mesas. Not everyone they met was glad to see them: in southeastern Utah surveyors fought and escaped a band of Utes and Paiutes who recognized that the survey meant dispossession from their homeland. Hayden saw his expedition as a scientific endeavor focused on geology, geographic description, cartographic accuracy, and even ethnography, but the search for economic potential was a significant underlying motive. As this book shows, these pragmatic scientists were on the lookout for gold beneath every rock, grazing lands in every valley, and economic opportunity around each bend in the trail. The Hayden Survey ultimately shaped the American imagination in contradictory ways, solidifying the idea of "progress"-and government funding of its pursuit-while also revealing, via Jackson's photographs, a landscape with a beauty hitherto unknown and unimagined.

Between 1880 and 1940, Navajo and Ute families and westward-trending Anglos met in the ""bullpens"" of southwestern trading posts to barter for material goods. As the products of the livestock economy of Navajo culture were exchanged for the merchandise of an industrialized nation, a wealth of cultural knowledge also changed hands. In Both Sides of the Bullpen, Robert S. McPherson reveals the ways that Navajo tradition fundamentally reshaped and defined trading practices in the Four Corners area of southeastern Utah and southwestern Colorado. Drawing on oral histories of Native peoples and traders collected over thirty years of research, McPherson explores these interactions from both perspectives, as wool, blankets, and silver crossed the counter in exchange for flour, coffee, and hardware. To succeed, traders had to meet the needs and expectations of their customers, often interpreted through Navajo cultural standards. From the organization of the post building to gift giving, health care and burial services, and a credit system tailored to the Navajo calendar, every feature of the trading post served trader and customer alike. Over time, these posts evolved from ad hoc business ventures or profitable cooperative stores into institutions with a clearly defined set of expectations that followed Navajo traditional practices. Traders spent their days evaluating craft work, learning the financial circumstances of each Native family, following economic trends in the wool and livestock industry back east, and avoiding conflict. In detail and depth, the many voices woven throughout Both Sides of the Bullpen restore an underappreciated era to the history of the American Southwest. They show us that for American Indians and white traders alike in the Four Corners region during the late 1800s and early 1900s, barter was as much a cultural expression as it was an economic necessity.

For travelers passing through northern Navajo country, the desert landscape appears desolate. The few remaining Navajo trading posts, once famous for their bustling commerce, seem unimpressive. Yet a closer look at the economic and creative activity in this region, which straddles northeastern Arizona, northwestern New Mexico, and southeastern Utah, belies a far more interesting picture. In Traders, Agents, and Weavers, Robert S. McPherson unveils the fascinating - and at times surprising - history of the merging of cultures and artistic innovation across this land. McPherson, the author of numerous books on Navajo and southwestern history, narrates here the story of Navajo economic and cultural development through the testimonies of traders, government agents, tribal leaders, and accomplished weavers. For the first half of the twentieth century, trading posts dominated the Navajo economy in northwestern New Mexico. McPherson highlights the Two Grey Hills post and its sister posts Toadlena and Newcomb, which encouraged excellence among weavers and sold high-quality rugs and blankets. Parallel to the success of the trading industry was the establishment of the Northern Navajo or Shiprock Agency and Boarding School. The author explains the pivotal influence on the area of the agency's stern and controversial founder, William T. Shelton, known by Navajos as Tall Leader. Through cooperation with government agents, American settlers, and traders, Navajo weavers not only succeeded financially but also developed their own artistic crafts. Shunning the use of brightly dyed yarn and opting for the natural colors of sheep's wool, these weavers, primarily women, developed an intricate style that has few rivals. Eventually, economic shifts, including oil drilling and livestock reduction, eroded the traditional Navajo way of life and led to the collapse of the trading post system. Nonetheless, as McPherson emphasizes, Navajo weavers have maintained their distinctive style and method of production to this day.

The Anaasazi people left behind marvelous structures, the ruins of which are preserved at Mesa Verde, Chaco Canyon, and Canyon de Chelly. But what do we know about these people, and how do they relate to Native nations living in the Southwest today? Archaeologists have long studied the American Southwest, but as historian Robert McPherson shows in Viewing the Ancestors, their findings may not tell the whole story. McPherson maintains that combining archaeology with knowledge derived from the oral traditions of the Navajo, Ute, Paiute, and Hopi peoples yields a more complete history. McPherson's approach to oral tradition reveals evidence that, contrary to the archaeological consensus that these groups did not coexist, the Navajos interacted with their Anaasazi neighbors. In addition to examining archaeological literature, McPherson has studied traditional teachings and interviewed Native people to obtain accounts of their history and of the relations between the Anaasazi and Athapaskan ancestors of today's Hopi, Pueblo, and Navajo peoples. Oral history, McPherson points out, tells why things happened. For example, archaeological findings indicate that the Hopi are descended from the Anaasazi, but Hopi oral tradition better explains why the ancient Puebloans may have left the Four Corners region: the drought that may have driven the Anaasazi away was a symptom of what had gone wrong within the society - a point that few archaeologists could derive from what is found in the ground. An important text for non-Native scholars as well as Native people committed to retaining traditional knowledge, Viewing the Ancestors exemplifies collaboration between the sciences and oral traditions rather than a contest between the two.

Samuel Holiday was one of a small group of Navajo men enlisted by the Marine Corps during World War II to use their native language to transmit secret communications on the battlefield. Based on extensive interviews with Robert S. McPherson, "Under the Eagle" is Holiday's vivid account of his own story. It is the only book-length oral history of a Navajo code talker in which the narrator relates his experiences in his own voice and words.
"Under the Eagle" carries the reader from Holiday's childhood years in rural Monument Valley, Utah, into the world of the United States's Pacific campaign against Japan--to such places as Kwajalein, Saipan, Tinian, and Iwo Jima. Central to Holiday's story is his Navajo worldview, which shapes how he views his upbringing in Utah, his time at an Indian boarding school, and his experiences during World War II. Holiday's story, coupled with historical and cultural commentary by McPherson, shows how traditional Navajo practices gave strength and healing to soldiers facing danger and hardship and to veterans during their difficult readjustment to life after the war.
The Navajo code talkers have become famous in recent years through books and movies that have dramatized their remarkable story. Their wartime achievements are also a source of national pride for the Navajos. And yet, as McPherson explains, Holiday's own experience was "as much mental and spiritual as it was physical." This decorated marine served "under the eagle" not only as a soldier but also as a Navajo man deeply aware of his cultural obligations.

For almost ninety years, Navajo medicine man John Holiday has watched the sun rise over the rock formations of his home in Monument Valley. Author and scholar Robert S. McPherson interviewed Holiday extensively and in "A Navajo Legacy" records his full and fascinating life.

In the first part of this book, Holiday describes how, at an early age, he began an apprenticeship with his grandfather to learn the Blessingway ceremony. As a youth, Holiday traveled over the desert with family members to find forage for the animals and plants for healing practices. He experienced the invasion of Monument Valley by whites and later participated in the early filmmaking industry. Holiday was employed in the 1930s with the Civilian Conservation Corps and then served a brief stint in the military. During the 1950s he mined in one of the two largest uranium deposits on the Navajo Reservation. He also worked on the railroad in Utah. But he always returned to eke out a living with his livestock and agriculture.

In the second part of the book, Holiday details family and tribal teachings. All of Holiday's experiences and teachings reflect the thoughts of a traditional practitioner who has found in life both beauty and lessons for future generations.

For travelers passing through northern Navajo country, the desert landscape appears desolate. The few remaining Navajo trading posts, once famous for their bustling commerce, seem unimpressive. Yet a closer look at the economic and creative activity in this region, which straddles northeastern Arizona, northwestern New Mexico, and southeastern Utah, belies a far more interesting picture. In Traders, Agents, and Weavers, Robert S. McPherson unveils the fascinating-and at times surprising-history of the merging of cultures and artistic innovation across this land. McPherson, the author of numerous books on Navajo and southwestern history, narrates here the story of Navajo economic and cultural development through the testimonies of traders, government agents, tribal leaders, and accomplished weavers. For the first half of the twentieth century, trading posts dominated the Navajo economy in northwestern New Mexico. McPherson highlights the Two Grey Hills post and its sister posts Toadlena and Newcomb, which encouraged excellence among weavers and sold high-quality rugs and blankets. Parallel to the success of the trading industry was the establishment of the Northern Navajo or Shiprock Agency and Boarding School. The author explains the pivotal influence on the area of the agency's stern and controversial founder, William T. Shelton, known by Navajos as Tall Leader. Through cooperation with government agents, American settlers, and traders, Navajo weavers not only succeeded financially but also developed their own artistic crafts. Shunning the use of brightly dyed yarn and opting for the natural colors of sheep's wool, these weavers, primarily women, developed an intricate style that has few rivals. Eventually, economic shifts, including oil drilling and livestock reduction, eroded the traditional Navajo way of life and led to the collapse of the trading post system. Nonetheless, as McPherson emphasizes, Navajo weavers have maintained their distinctive style and method of production to this day.

In Navajo Land, Navajo Culture, Robert S. McPherson presents an intimate history of the Dine, or Navajo people, of southeastern Utah. Moving beyond standard history by incorporating Native voices, the author shows how the Dine's culture and economy have both persisted and changed during the twentieth century. The Navajos encountered here live according to the traditions of a livestock economy, where religious values provide the core philosophy and where the world is imbued with spiritual significance. The land--the rugged canyon, mesa, and mountain terrain of the Four Corners region (where Utah, Arizona, Colorado, and New Mexico meet)--is of fundamental importance. The Navajos' dependence on the land, and love for it, pervades their account of life in this desert country. During the twentieth century, as the dominant white culture increasingly affected their worldview, these Navajos adjusted to change, took what they perceived as beneficial, and shaped or filtered outside influences to preserve traditional values. With guidance from Navajo elders, McPherson describes varied experiences ranging from traditional deer hunting to livestock reduction, from bartering at a trading post to acting in John Ford movies, and from the coming of the automobile to the burgeoning of the tourist industry. Clearly written and richly detailed, this book offers new perspectives on a people who have shaped their own destiny while adapting to new conditions. The strength of McPherson's book comes from his being a good listener and his aquaintance, gained over time, with concerns that matter at the grass roots level. Readers will appreciate his dedication and his focus on a part of Navajo country thatheretofore has been largely ignored by scholars.--Peter Iverson, Regents Professor of History, Arizona State University.

Born in the early 1940s in northern Arizona's high country desert, Jim Dandy began life imbued with the traditions of the Navajo people. Raised by his father and grandfather--both medicine men--and a grandmother steeped in Navajo practices, he embraced their teachings and followed in their footsteps. But attending the LDS Placement program in northern Utah changed his life's course when he became a member of the Mormon Church. Following graduation from high school, Jim served an LDS mission among his people, obtained a bachelor's degree, and entered the work force in southeastern Utah as a career counselor, teacher, and community advocate who improved educational opportunities on the Navajo Reservation.
Jim has led a life of service and teaching. He maintains the traditional philosophy with which he was raised and the Mormon beliefs that he learned and continues to follow; his life reflects the values inherent in these two different worlds. Readers interested in Navajo philosophy will find his blend of these two distinct views fascinating, while others will better understand the effects of the controversial placement program on the life of one individual. However, this is primarily the warm story of a man's life among his people and his love for them and their culture.