Bitterness Road (Ballena Press Anthropological Papers)

By Lorraine M. Sherer, Frances Stillmam, Sylvi a Brakke Vane

No Synopsis Available.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0879191287
• ISBN13: 9780879191283
• Release Date: January 1994
• Publisher: Ballena Pr
• Length: 137 Pages
• Weight: 0.85 lbs.
• Dimensions: 9.3" x 0.5" x 6.3"

Customer Reviews

Perspective - Providing the Mojave Version

Lorraine Sherer arrived in Needles, California, as a child in about 1906; her mother "found the Indian women more friendly than their non-Indian counterparts." In the late 1950s Sherer returned to Needles after having become a professor at UCLA. Eventually she gained the trust of Mojave tribal members, especially that of tribal chairwoman Frances Stillman, who eventually became a friend. Out of this friendship and subsequent research Sherer published several insightful articles and a monograph: "The Clan Systems of the Fort Mojave Indians." The manuscript for "Bitterness Road", however, was incomplete when she died in the early 1980s. Finally, it was published in 1994, as a fully annotated, 125 page book. "Bitterness Road" is one of those rare accounts that provides some balance to `histories as told by the winners.' Throughout, the oral traditions and perspectives of the Mojave people are provided in concert with the versions more familiar to the writers of westerns and Hollywood screen plays. Perhaps this passage from the foreword best summarizes the history told here: "The Mojave, though a people who welcomed visitors as long as the visitors posed no apparent treat to them and did no damage, successfully defended themselves when the Spaniards, the fur traders, the explorers, and the emigrants destroyed their crops, vandalized their building materials, and in other ways imposed on their hospitality. Their defensive measures repeatedly won them long periods of peace and sovereignty, but they were overwhelmed in the 1850s when the United States Army, its guns, and seagoing ships arrived." This book leaves the strong impression of a story told honestly and fairly; a story none of us should forget.