From: sbrock@teal.csn.org (Steve Brock)
Newsgroups: alt.native
Subject: West of the Divide:  Voices from a Ranch and a Reservation by Jim Carrier (Culture/The West/Native Americans)
Date: 21 Aug 92 20:11:09 GMT
Organization: Colorado SuperNet, Inc.

WEST OF THE DIVIDE:  VOICES FROM A RANCH AND A RESERVATION by Jim
Carrier.  Fulcrum Publishing, 350 Indiana St., Golden, CO  80401. 
200 pp., $19.95.  1-55591-093-9


                             REVIEW

     Carrier, a reporter for the Denver Post, was sent to find the
modern version of a "Cowboy" and an "Indian."  He explored Colorado
in search of two families of each genre, who were chosen "for their
values, their understanding of their own histories, the clarity of
their view, the depth of their character and the variety of the
people in their families."  They also had to possess patience
enough to endure three months of intense questioning.
     Carrier introduces us to the "Cowboys," the Spanns of
Gunnison, who prefer to be called "Ranchers."  He spent three
months with them, doing chores such as calving and moving cattle to
pasture.       
     Most important to Lee Spann is water, and he is a vocal member
of the Colorado River Water Conservation District, opposing the
pumping of any Gunnison River water to the Front Range.  Also
important is being a good neighbor.  Lee constantly encounters
wayward cattle from another ranch and returns them, repairing the
breach that let them get away in the process. 
     The family is seriously thinking of moving to the warmer
climes of the Delta, Colorado area, where they can grow more hay
per acre and calve earlier.  They seem too busy, though, to find
time to do so.
     The "Indians" are the Knights of the Ute Mountain Ute tribe of
southwestern Colorado.  At the helm of this family is eighty-year-
old Charles Knight, a tribal elder and spiritual leader.  We first
meet him at the tribal Sun Dance, where his son Terry, also a
spiritual leader, dances.  
     The tribe only recently received piped-in drinking water, and
it is of questionable quality.  They are still waiting for water
from the Animas-La Plata water project, which is still tied up in
litigation.  Terry is also involved in water issues; he is a water
negotiator for the tribe.
     Also causing the family frustration is trying to preserve the
traditional way of life in a modern world, fighting poverty and
alcoholism, and trying to get the U.S. Government to live up to
treaties it signed close to 100 years ago.
     Carrier concludes that his image of both of these families,
seen from his youth on the East coast, is much different from the
reality of their lives.  The West is still wild, he says, but
contemporary life makes the romantic vision become shaped by the
actual version.
     My only complaint is that the Post should have sent a
photographer on this assignment.  The book suffers from a lack of
illustrations.  No branding of cattle, no riding the Ute fenceline,
no water flowing in the Gunnison or Mancos rivers, no faces to
attach to the names.
     This book will give those of the East pause, acknowledging
that the Cowboys and Indians have stopped fighting each other. 
They are now respectful of each other and living quite similar
lives.  To Westerners, the story is one which we all know, but
still appreciate.