Sharing the Desert: The Tohono O'odham in History - Paperback

by Winston P. Erickson (Author)

This book marks the culmination of fifteen years of collaboration between the University of Utah's American West Center and the Tohono O'oodham Nation's Education Department to collect documents and create curricular materials for use in their tribal school system. . . . Erickson has done an admirable job compiling this narrative.-Pacific Historical Review

Front Jacket

This book marks the culmination of fifteen years of collaboration between the University of Utah's American West Center and the Tohono O'oodham Nation's Education Department to collect documents and create curricular materials for use in their tribal school system.. 9780816523535|JF|A pastime, delightful--
Chips, cards, and a table.
The riddles insightful,
the future, unstable! What is it?" It's "LoterA-a," the Mexican game of chance! For the uninitiated, it might seem like bingo played with a riddling tarot deck. But this enthralling board game is more than entertainment. The images found on its cards--"La Virgen, El Pan Dulce, La Telenovela"--are miniature reflections of an entire culture, capturing the joys and sorrows of the Mexican people. Wildly popular on both sides of the border, LoterA-a cards originated in the Iberian peninsula in the eighteenth century but have been redesigned so many times as to defy expectation, with boards devoted to ecclesiastical figures, soccer idols, and even vaudeville starlets. With the dawn of a new millennium, American artist Teresa Villegas created a new LoterA-a set that is already gaining popularity in Mexico, and her striking images are also widely exhibited in galleries across the United States. This gift book, which will bring pleasure and bewilderment to children and adults alike, reproduces more than two dozen of Villegas's 54 colorful cards, pairing them with insightful, humorous riddles written by award-winning author Ilan Stavans. Stavans also revisits his childhood in an essay that examines the role of luck in Mexican life and recreates the sort of poetry jam that often accompanies LoterA-a contests wherever they might take place. Delve into the emblematic pages of this marvelous volume to find your own "Calavera," Let yourself unravel the paths of "El Deseo" and the mysteries of "El CorazA3n," Before too long, you'll realize that luck is never truly accidental--for a turn at ALoterA-a! is always anopportunity to come face to face with "El Destino,"

Author Biography

Winston P. Erickson received a B.A. in 1968 and an M.A. in 1976 in European history from the University of Utah.

Since 1918, he has worked at the American West Center, a research branch of the University of Utah, where he developed curricular materials for the Ute Mountain Ute Tribe and assisted in a similar project for the Tohono O'odham. He has also researched traditional land-use patterns of the Ute Mountain Utes and of the Tesuque Pueblo in New Mexico. He participated in the establishment of the archives for the Tohono O'odham Nation, the Ute Mountain Ute Tribe, and the Pueblos of New Mexico.

Erickson is the program administrator for the American West Center and is extensively involved in collecting Native American oral histories.