Bountiful Deserts: Sustaining Indigenous Worlds in Northern New Spain

Bountiful Deserts explores the knowledge of Indigenous peoples in the arid lands of northwestern Mexico, revealing the spiritual power of deserts through their cultural practices and the long process of colonial conflicts and adaptations. It uses the tools of history, anthropology, geography, and ecology to paint an expansive picture of Indigenous worlds before and during colonial encounters, bringing together the analytical dimension of scientific research and the wisdom of oral traditions.

Format: Hardback
Length: 368 pages
Publication date: 11 October 2022
Publisher: University of Arizona Press

Bountiful Deserts: Indigenous Peoples and the Desert in Northwestern Mexico
Bountiful Deserts: Indigenous Peoples and the Desert in Northwestern Mexico is a groundbreaking book that explores the rich and complex relationship between Indigenous peoples and the desert in northwestern Mexico. Author Cynthia Radding draws together historical texts, oral testimonies, archaeology, and natural history to reveal the spiritual power of deserts and the ways in which Indigenous people sustained their worlds before European contact.

The book highlights the long process of colonial conflicts and adaptations over more than two centuries, and uses the tools of history, anthropology, geography, and ecology to paint an expansive picture of Indigenous worlds before and during colonial encounters. Radding re-creates the Indigenous worlds in both their spiritual and material realms, bringing together the analytical dimension of scientific research and the wisdom of oral traditions in its exploration of different kinds of knowledge about the natural world.

Published in Cooperation with the William P. Clements Center for Southwest Studies, Southern Methodist University, Bountiful Deserts is a must-read for anyone interested in the history, culture, and ecology of the desert.

Dimension: 229 x 152 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9780816546923