Now available in paperback, this informal account of the people, culture, land, and history of Sonora, Mexico, describes blistering deserts, alpine mountains, tropical river valleys, and arid coastlines, and relates the lives and stories of cattlemen, lumbermen, fishermen, weavers, cobblers, musicians, bootleggers, and Indians. The author's curiosity extends to the weaving of Nacori hats, the distillation of fiery bacanora, and the utility of the tegua, the Sonoran cowboy boot. Sonora is also a record of painful twentieth-century change of human dislocation from rural villages to industrial cities and the relentless destruction of Sonoran forests, jungles, deserts, and rivers. A regular visitor for over thirty years, the author provides a colorful portrait of the Sonora of the past, present, and future.

In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries northwestern Mexico was the scene of ongoing conflict among three distinct social groups - Indians, religious orders of priests, and settlers. Priests hoped to pacify Indians, who in turn resisted the missionary clergy. Settlers, who often encountered opposition from priests, sought to dominate Indians, take over their land, and, when convenient, exploit them as servants and laborers. Indians struggled to maintain control of their traditional lands and their cultures and persevere in their ancient enmities with competing peoples, with whom they were often at war. The missionaries faced conflicts within their own orders, between orders, and between the orders and secular clergy. Some settlers championed Indian rights against the clergy, while others viewed Indians as ongoing impediments to economic development and viewed the priests as obstructionists. In this study, Yetman, distinguished scholar of Sonoran history and culture, examines seven separate instances of such conflict, each of which reveals a different perspective on this complicated world. Based on extensive archival research, Yetman's account shows how the settlers, due to their persistence in these conflicts, emerged triumphant, with the Jesuits disappearing from the scene and Indians pushed into the background.

The Mayos, an indigenous people of northwestern Mexico, live in small towns spread over southern Sonora and northern Sinaloa, lands of remarkable biological diversity. Traditional Mayo knowledge is quickly being lost as this culture becomes absorbed into modern Mexico. Moreover, as big agriculture spreads into the region, the natural biodiversity of these lands is also rapidly disappearing. This engaging and accessible ethnobotany, based on hundreds of interviews with the Mayos and illustrated with the authors' strikingly beautiful photographs, helps preserve our knowledge of both an indigenous culture and an endangered environment.
This book contains a comprehensive description of northwest Mexico's tropical deciduous forests and thornscrub on the traditional Mayo lands reaching from the Sea of Cortes to the foothills of the Sierra Madre. The first half of the book is a highly readable account of the climate, geology, and vegetation of the region. The authors also provide a valuable history of the people, their language, culture, festival traditions, and plant use. The second half of the book is an annotated list of plants presenting the authors' detailed findings on plant use in Mayo culture.