|
|
|
Book Review
The Kachina and the Cross: Indians and Spaniards in the Early Southwest. By Carroll L. Riley. (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1999. xvi, 336 pp. $34.95, ISBN 0-87480-610-0.)
|
Carroll L. Riley's latest book is a sequel to his earlier The Frontier People (1982) and Rio del Norte (1995). The present one focuses upon Spanish-Indian relations in seventeenth-century New Mexico. Although some may quibble about the term "Early Southwest" in the subtitle, it should be remembered that the Southwest in the seventeenth century means New Mexico, since none of the other southwestern colonies of Spain were settled then. |
1 |
|
Riley's central argument is that interacting forces among Pueblos, nomads, and Spaniards resulted in "relationships that changed over time and differed from one part of the province [New Mexico] to another." He further explains that in seventeenth-century New Mexico the "religion of the Pueblos, symbolized in Spanish minds by the kachina cult, and the zealous Christianity of the Franciscans" defined the constant struggle between two differing religious ideologies. With his usual clarity, sound research, and objectivity, Cal Riley interweaves the events and personalities into a chronological account, except for the first four chapters, which focus upon essential background topics to the period he emphasizes. |
. . . |
There are about 364 more words in this article.
Please log in (or, if you are not yet an
authorized user, please go to the
User Setup page) to gain full access rights. Or if you're already logged in register your subscription.
|