Boundaries Between

Before the arrival of Euro-Americans, Southern Paiutes foraged the arid hills and valleys of the area now called southern Utah, Arizona north of the Grand Canyon, southern Nevada, and southeastern California. By all the 'rules' of history and anthropology, such a small-scale, foraging culture should have disappeared long ago but the Southern Paiutes survive, and theirs is a story that unsettles assumptions about the role that social complexity, power, and culture play in the dynamics of human history. This story is told in "Boundaries Between", a long-awaited, definitive ethnohistory of the Southern Paiutes. Skillfully combining contemporary oral histories, meticulous archival research, an astute critical perspective on Indian-white relations, and accessible prose, "Boundaries Between" relates the history of the Southern Paiutes from their first contacts with European trappers and traders in the late eighteenth century through the end of the twentieth century. It is a history that proceeds from encounters with Mormons, miners, and the military to the modern-day struggles of Native people over the Federal policy of termination and the control of their environment. As Martha Knack makes clear, the Southern Paiutes were in many ways unique: They rarely fought against the United States; were dispersed over a wide area and often not viewed as a single people; and, only infrequently falling under BIA jurisdiction, were often denied legal recognition as Indians. Impressive in its scope, compelling in its power of observation and interpretation, this work not only restores a remarkable people to their rightful place in Western history, but it also stands as a landmark achievement in the field of ethnohistory. Martha C. Knack is a professor of anthropology at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. She is the author of "As Long as the River Shall Run: An Ethnohistory of Pyramid Lake Reservation", Nevada and coeditor of "Native Americans and Wage Labor: Ethnohistorical Perspectives".