Guide to Life and Literature of the Southwest, with a Few Observations

by J. Frank Dobie

CATLIN, GEORGE. Letters and Notes on the Manners, Customs and Conditions of the North American Indians, Written during Eight Years' Travel, 1832-39, 1841. Despite many strictures, Catlin's two volumes remain standard. I am pleased to find Frank Roe, in The North American Buffalo, standing up for him. In Pursuit of the Horizon: A Life of George Catlin, Painter and Recorder of the American Indian, New York, 1948, Loyd Haberly fails in evaluating evidence but brings out the man's career and character.

CLUM, WOODWORTH. Apache Agent, Boston, 1936. Worthy autobiography of a noble understander of the Apache people. OP.

COMFORT, WILL LEVINGTON. Apache, Dutton, New York, 1931. Noble; vivid; semifiction.

DAVIS, BRITTON. The Truth about Geronimo, Yale University Press, New Haven, 1929. Davis helped run Geronimo down.

DESHIELDS, JAMES T. Cynthia Ann Parker, St. Louis, 1886; reprinted 1934. Good narrative of noted woman captive. OP.

DOBIE, J. FRANK. The Mustangs, Little, Brown, Boston, 1952. The opening chapters of this book distil a great deal of research by scholars on Plains Indian acquisition of horses, riding, and raiding.

GRINNELL, GEORGE BIRD. The Cheyenne Indians, New Haven, 1923. This two-volume work supersedes The Fighting Cheyennes, 1915. It is noble, ample, among the most select books on Plains Indians. Blackfoot Lodge Tales: The Story of a Prairie People, 1892, shows Grinnell's skill as storyteller at its best. Pawnee Hero Stories and Folk Tales, 1893, is hardly an equal but it reveals the high values of life held by representatives of the original plainsmen. The Story of the Indian, 1895, is a general survey. All OP. Grinnell's knowledge and power as a writer on Indians and animals has not been sufficiently recognized. He combined in a rare manner scholarship, plainsmanship, and the worldliness of publishing.

{illust. caption = George Catlin, in North American Indians (1841)}

HALEY, J. EVETTS. Fort Concho and the Texas Frontier, San Angelo Standard-Times, San Angelo, Texas, 1952. Mainly a history of military activities against Comanches and other tribes, laced with homilies on the free enterprise virtues of the conquerors.

LEE, NELSON. Three Years among the Comanches, 1859.