Black Sun of the Miwok
Publisher: University of New Mexico Press
Published: September 1, 2000
Language: eng
Format: Hardcover
Number of pages: 189
ISBN-13: 9780826322371
Subjects: Social conditions; Native Americans - Southwest; History; History - General History; History: American; United States - State & Local - General; People of Color; American history; California; Social Science / Native American Studies; Sociology, Social Studies; USA; Native American; Biography; Miwok Indians
Description: "These six vignettes recall Miwok Indians whom Jack Burrows knew as a boy in Murphys, California, during the 1920s and 1930s. The Miwok were hunter-gatherers in the Sierra Nevada foothills when the gold rush overwhelmed them in the mid-nineteenth century. By World War I decades of violence, disease, and poverty had reduced the Miwok to 670 souls scraping by on the social and economic fringes of Anglo society. In twenty more years, Miwok culture had nearly vanished.".

"A few of the survivors come to life in Burrows's portraits of Miwok old timers such as Mary, Walker, and Aaron who could recall the old days of Miwok autonomy and who still found strength and dignity in indigenous culture. Fading cultural memory, social alienation, and economic desperation, however, drove the younger Miwok such as The Brothers, Andy, and Dickie to destructive choices and behaviors that ultimately ruined their lives.

Since World War II, the Miwok have re-established themselves as an indigenous tribe and continue to practice traditional rituals and ceremonies."--BOOK JACKET.