Weaving women's lives : three generations in a Navajo family / Louise Lamphere ; with Eva Price, Carole Cadman, and Valerie Darwin.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Lamphere, Louise.

Contributor:

Price, Eva, 1928-

Cadman, Carole, 1948-

Darwin, Valerie.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Price, Eva, 1928-.

Price, Eva.

Cadman, Carole, 1948-.

Cadman, Carole.

Darwin, Valerie.

Navajo women weavers--Biography.

Navajo women weavers.

Navajo textile fabrics.

Navajo Indians--Social life and customs.

Navajo Indians.

Genre:

Biographies.

Physical Description:

xiii, 314 pages : illustrations ; 23 cm

Place of Publication:

Albuquerque : University of New Mexico Press, 2007.

Summary:

Louise Lamphere met Eva Price in 1965 in Sheep Springs, New Mexico, on the eastern side of the Navajo Reservation, while Lamphere was doing fieldwork for her dissertation in social anthropology at Harvard University. Over the next forty years, Lamphere developed a strong friendship with Price that expanded to include Eva's daughter, Carole Cadman, and granddaughter, Valerie Darwin.

When Price expressed her desire to pass along her teachings about Navajo life to her children and grandchildren, Lamphere saw an opportunity to pursue her own interest in writing a book on Navajo women that would encompass their transformative experiences through the twentieth century. Lamphere collaborated with Price, Cadman, and Darwin to create a narrative that highlights the voices of three generations of Navajo women, placing them within the context of the larger American society rather than presenting the Navajo as an isolated indigenous culture.

Emphasizing the vibrancy and strength of Navajo culture, Weaving Women's Lives illustrates the process of incorporating new practices and ideas while retaining distinctive Navajo beliefs, values, and orientations. As individual threads are woven to create a unique pattern, so have Navajo women pulled together elements of Navajo and Anglo culture to create a new blueprint for their lives.

Contents:

Weaving women's lives

The main stalk : placing the mountain recess people on the landscape

"I used to herd sheep all around here" : Eva's childhood, sheep herding, and the trauma of stock reduction

"This is your land" : Eva's father, his teachings, and coming of age

After the war : things fall apart

Eva's conversion : regaining a place of blessing

Carole's adolescence and motherhood

"It was really my grandmother who raised me" : Valerie's childhood

Valerie's high school

Valerie's college years

2006.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 304-307) and index.

ISBN:

9780826342782

0826342787

OCLC:

154677523