THUNDER RIDES A BLACK HORSE Mescalero Apaches and The Mystic Present [SOLD]

THUNDER RIDES A BLACK HORSE Mescalero Apaches and The Mystic Present 

by Claire R. Farrer, California State University, Chico

Published by Waveland Press, Inc, Prospect Heights, Illinois

1994. Softcover, first edition, 112 pages, inscribed to present owner by author

Autographed by author - This book was inscribed to me by the author when we met at a July 4, 1995 Mescalero Apache puberty ceremony in the southern New Mexico reservation.

“The impressive four-day and four-night Mescalero Apache girls’ puberty ceremonial provides the structure for Farrer’s consideration of the ways in which old myths and legends inform contemporary actions and beliefs.  Why people behave the way they do is as much a focus as is their actual behavior.  Through instructions given to Farrer by Bernard Second, her Apache teacher for fourteen years, readers gain insight into the importance of narrative, not just in ceremony but especially in everyday living on a contemporary Indian reservation in the American Southwest.  Sights and smells are almost palpable as the author provides the best in reflexive ethnography by allowing readers to see her as a person rather than an all-knowing anthropologist. She neither romanticizes nor patronizes the Apachean people, who are presented as people with foibles as well as possessing much worthy of admiration.”