Book Notices

Women and Authority: Re-emerging Mormon Feminism.

Edited by MAXINE HANKS (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1992 xxxiv + 460 pp Paper, $19.95.)

Of the nineteen selections in this collection, one is a sampling of excerpts from the Woman's Exponent of the 1870s, one is a series of statements and thoughts taken from various contemporary sources, and seventeen are essays from an impressive group of Mormon scholars and writers A few of the essays, such as Linda King Newell's "The Historical Relationship of Mormon Women and Priesthood" and D. Michael Quinn's "Mormon Women Have Had the Priesthood Since 1843," are predominantly historical Even those that are mostly personal still proceed from a historical context All deal in one way or another with the questions of a Mother in Heaven or women holding the priesthood.

If the reader has time for only one selection, he/she should turn to Lavina Fielding Anderson's "The Grammar of Inequity," there to ponder anew the many ways that sentence structure, conventional usage, and simple vocabulary dominate thought processes and values.

Rank and Warfare among the Plains Indians.

By BERNARD MISHKIN (1940; Bison Book Edition, Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1992 xx + 65 pp. Paper, $6.95.)

Originally published as a monograph in 1940, this slim volume is a thought-provoking analysis of relationships engendered by horses, warfare, and social ranking among the Plains Indians The Kiowa provide the central basis of this study that argues economics, not just war honors, served as a motivating force for horse raiding and intertribal rivalry. The belief that Indian cultures were egalitarian is challenged by ethnography, elucidating the various rank structures and what warriors did to obtain them.

The Grand Canyon: Intimate Views.

Edited by ROBERT C EULER and FRANK TIKALSKY (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1992. xx + 114 pp Paper, $15.95.)

First-time visitors to the Grand Canyon could do worse than equip themselves with this expanded version of The Grand Canyon: Up Close and Personal (1980) Specialist contributors focus on the natural history, Indians, and exploration of the canyon, with a concluding chapter on hiking. The essays are necessarily superficial, since this is only an introduction, but the brief and current bibliographies are effective guides for further investigation Attractive historic and contemporary photographs add to the appeal.

The Gathering of Zion: The Story of the Mormon Trail.

By WALLACE STEGNER. (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1992 xiv + 332 pp Paper, $12.95.)

Stegner's 1964 classic remains one of the best single-volume accounts of the Mormon migration west.

Mud Woman: Poems from the Clay.

By NORA NARANJO-MORSE (Tucson : University of Arizona Press, 1992 127 pp Cloth, $35.00; paper , $15.95.)

Naranjo-Morse, a sculptor who gathers her own clay near her Espanola, New Mexico, home, is also a poet. This book combines these talents by juxtaposing her sculptures— critically acclaimed for their blend of humor and tradition—with poems inspired by the clay figures. The sculptor/poet writes in the preface: "My work does not generally conform to standards set by the current Indian art market. I exercise my creative license in a menagerie of characters that travel through time, inspired by culture and personal experiences. The results are forms like Pearline, whose thirst for adventures educates her to life's lessons. Pearline fluctuates between confusion and clarity, reverence and mischief, while searching for her niche in life."

Personal Recollections and Observations of General Nelson A. Miles. 2 vols.

(Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1992. vi + 591 pp . Paper, $23.95 set.)

These colorful memoirs, illustrated by Frederic Remington, were first published in 1897, near the end of Miles's career. Volume 1 covers his role in the Civil War an d his campaigns against the Plains Indians, ending with the battle of the Little Big Horn and the surrender of Sitting Bull. Volume 2 follows the general to Washington Territory and finally to the Southwest where he takes on the Apaches and Geronimo. In addition to relating his own adventures, Miles brings fur traders, trailblazers, gold seekers, and missionaries into his narrative.