Books published by publisher University of Papua New Guinea Press

Is the ChupaCabra mythical or real? Stories of the creature abound in Latino communities. The illusive creature is said to suck the blood of goats. Thus, its name, goatsucker. Whenever a backyard goat or chicken is mysteriously killed, the story spreads in the barrio that the ChupaCabra struck.When Professor Rosa Medina began to research the folklore of the ChupaCabra, she never expected to tangle face-to-face with the monster. Rosa journeys to Mexico to examine a ChupaCabra incident. The creature has killed a campesino in the jungle. And the drug traffickers who have captured the ChupaCabra also control a large drug shipment destined for Los Angeles. The monster is set loose on the streets; so is the meth that is destroying the brains of the young and vulnerable. This fast-paced story moves from Mexico to Los Angeles to New Mexico. Danger lurks at every corner as Rosa fights to protect her students from the forces of evil. Written for young adults, the story has a universal message. Only Rudolfo Anaya can combine the excitement of a thriller and the wisdom of traditional healings to create a page-turner that has lessons to teach us all.

Did you know that the okra plant and the word "okra" were introduced to the Americas from Africa? Or that "squash" was first a word from the language of the Narragansett tribe of New England? According to etymologists--people who study words, languages, and word histories--many languages grow by adopting words from other languages, or loanwords. American English is a giant stew, simmering with loanwords like "okra" and "squash."In her latest book, Linda Boyden shares an alphabet list of indigenous loanwords from North, South, and Central America that have found their way into common usage either nationally or regionally. "N?n?," for example, is the Hawaiian name for a goose native to the islands and the official state bird. From "abalone" to "zopilote," Boyden celebrates the cultural diversity of American English while her brilliantly colored collage illustrations and simple, direct text reveal the flexibility and adaptability of language to young readers.

This revision of a classic study long recognized as the most insightful and original account of the territorial period in the American Southwest will be welcomed by all readers of western history. The Far Southwest traces the history of New Mexico, Colorado, Utah, and Arizona from 1846 to 1912. Lamar analyzes the evolution of American political and economic systems to show, in particular, their impact on the racial and ethnic groups already present in the Southwest in 1846. In describing how American government and institutions such as the two-party system, trial by jury, and free schools were established in the Far Southwest, Lamar also puts into perspective both the local territorial history and the relationship between the region and the nation, particularly as regards issues of land tenure and church-state relations.This revision to the 1966 edition includes a new introduction, substantial additions to the bibliography, and some changes to the text and notes.

Puebloan Ruins of the Southwest offers a complete picture of Puebloan culture from its prehistoric beginnings through twenty-five hundred years of growth and change, ending with the modern-day Pueblo Indians of New Mexico and Arizona. Aerial and ground photographs, over 325 in color, and sixty settlement plans provide an armchair trip to ruins that are open to the public and that may be visited or viewed from nearby. Included, too, are the living pueblos from Taos in north central New Mexico along the Rio Grande Valley to Isleta, and westward through Acoma and Zuni to the Hopi pueblos in Arizona.In addition to the architecture of the ruins, Puebloan Ruins of the Southwest gives a detailed overview of the Pueblo Indians' lifestyles including their spiritual practices, food, clothing, shelter, physical appearance, tools, government, water management, trade, ceramics, and migrations.

First published in 1995, this invaluable guide to the trees, shrubs, ground covers, and smaller plants that thrive in New Mexico’s many life zones and growing areas is now available in a long-awaited new edition. Landscape architect Baker H. Morrow considers the significant factors that impact planting in New Mexico—including soil conditions, altitude, drought, urban expansion, climate change, and ultraviolet radiation—to provide the tools for successful gardens and landscapes in the state. Added photographs and sketches identify the forms and uses of plants, including many new species that have become widely available in the region since the 1990s. The latest recommendations for specific cities and towns include more photos for ease of reference, and botanical names have also been updated. With ingenuity and efficient water management, Morrow demonstrates how to create landscapes that provide shade, color, oxygen, soil protection, windscreening, and outdoor enjoyment.ABOUT THE AUTHORBaker H. Morrow is the author or editor of many books, including the coedited Anasazi Architecture and American Design and Canyon Gardens: The Ancient Pueblo Landscapes of the American Southwest. A practicing landscape architect in Albuquerque for more than forty years, he is the founder and a professor of practice in the landscape architecture program at the School of Architecture and Planning at the University of New Mexico.

The Hero Twins tells the story of two brothers born to Changing Woman and trained by the Holy People to save their people from the naayéé', a race of monsters. But the naayéé' can't be beaten alone. Family and friends and wise mentors must lead any warrior down the good path toward victory. Colorful illustrations show the action as the twins seek out their father to receive the weapons they need to face the greatest monster of them all: Yé'iitsoh.Told in Navajo, the Diné language, and English, this story exists in many versions, and all demonstrate the importance of thinking, patience, persistence, bravery, and reverence. These teachings still help the Diné--and everyone--find the harmony of a balanced and braver life.

Powwow's coming, hear the beat?Powwow's coming, dancing feet.Powwow's coming, hear the drum?Powwow's coming, everyone!Frustrated as a schoolteacher not being able to find good instructional materials on American Indians, Linda Boyden has bypassed the tired stereotype of Indians on horseback or hunting game and placed them in today's setting of a powwow.Powwow's Coming provides children with a foundation for understanding and celebrating the enduring culture and heritage of American Indians. Boyden's exquisite cut-paper collage and engaging poem visually place readers within the scenes of a contemporary Native American community while offering a thoughtful look at powwows and their meanings to the Native participants.ABOUT THE CONTRIBUTORSLinda Boyden is a former elementary school teacher and author of Powwow's Coming (University of New Mexico Press) and The Blue Roses. The latter won the 2003 Paterson Prize in its age category, the Wordcraft Circle of Native American Writers and Storytellers' Book of the Year for Children's Literature, 2002-2003, and was included on the prestigious CCBC (Cooperative Children's Book Center) 2003 Choices list of recommended titles.ACCLAIM"A wonderful read-aloud book ideal for introducing young people to Native American culture."-- Midwest Book Review

While photographing the Congregation Montefiore Cemetery in Las Vegas, New Mexico, in 1985, Cary Herz first heard whispers about "the other people." Thus began a twenty-year search for descendants of crypto-Jews, the Sephardic Jews who were forced to convert to Catholicism during the Spanish and Portuguese Inquisitions centuries ago. Many openly professed Catholicism, but continued to practice the Jewish faith privately.Herz's photographs and the accompanying essays honor the people whose ancestors, through families' oral histories and genealogical records, knew about their heritage. Other New Mexican Hispanics have recently begun to explore their families' customs and are only beginning to examine their possible blended lineage. To help complete her exploration, Herz sought out symbols--gravesites, artifacts, and icons--that might point toward the presence of the descendants of crypto-Jews who came to the New World. There has recently been a renewed interest in crypto-Jews, as DNA tests have revealed the Jewish heritage of a number of Hispanic New Mexicans.

Edith Warner (1893-1951), who lived by the Rio Grande at the Otowi Switch in northern New Mexico, has become a legendary figure owing largely to her portrayal in two books: The Woman at Otowi Crossing, by Frank Waters, and The House at Otowi Bridge, by Peggy Pond Church. Because she is famous for her tearoom, where she entertained scientists from the Manhattan Project, few people realize that Edith Warner was a serious writer. Here for the first time she is allowed to speak for herself. The book's title is taken from an autobiographical fragment published here for the first time. Also included are letters, essays published and unpublished, and journal entries (salvaged by various friends from the original, which was burned after Warner's death at her request). The editor provides a useful introduction outlining Edith Warner's life and sets it in local and historical context, along with a wonderful collection of period photographs and a facsimile of Edith's famous chocolate cake recipe.Thousands of readers have been fascinated by this modest woman whose friendships with Pueblo Indians and atomic scientists seem to epitomize the paradoxes of life in New Mexico. To read this book is to hear her own quiet voice, describing pueblo ceremonials, detailing the difficulties of life during the war years, and above all recording her own spiritual relationship with the New Mexico landscape. For Edith Warner her work in the world--building a house, running a restaurant, writing it all down--was a kind of meditation. People still come to New Mexico for the reasons that drew her here eighty years ago, and her response to New Mexico can now take its rightful place in the state's cultural heritage.

One of the most remarkable features of life in the Southwest is the presence of Native American religious ceremonies in communities that are driving distance from Sunbelt cities. Many of these ceremonies are open to the public and Dancing Gods is the best single reference for visitors to dances at the Rio Grande Pueblos, Zuni Pueblo, the Hopi Mesas, and the Navajo and Apache reservations. Fergusson's classic guide to New Mexico and Arizona Indian ceremonies is once again available in print. It offers background information on the history and religion of the area's Native American peoples and describes the principal public ceremonies and some lesser-known dances that are rarely performed. Here is information on the major Pueblo rituals--the Corn Dance, Deer Dance, and Eagle Dance--as well as various dances at Zuni, including the complicated Shalako. Fergusson also describes the Hopi bean-planting and Niman Kachina ceremonies in addition to the Snake Dance, the Navajo Mountain Chant and Night Chant, and several Apache ceremonies."Still the best of all books about the Indian ceremonials of New Mexico and Arizona. . . .perceptive and simple, reverent and lucid."--Lawrence Clark Powell, Southwest Classics

A life touched by tragedy and deprivation--childhood in her native Ireland ending with the potato famine, immigration to Canada and then to the United States, marriage followed by the deaths of her husband and four children from yellow fever, and the destruction of her dressmaking business in the great Chicago fire of 1871--forged the stalwart labor organizer Mary Harris 'Mother' Jones into a force to be reckoned with.Radicalized in a brutal era of repeated violence against hard-working men and women, Mother Jones crisscrossed the country to demand higher wages and safer working conditions. Her activism in support of American workers began after the age of sixty. The grandmotherly persona she projected won the hearts, and her stirring rhetoric the minds, of working people. She made herself into a national symbol of resistance to tyranny. Sometimes exaggerating her own experiences, she fought for justice in mines, factories, and workshops across the nation. For her troubles she was condemned as 'the most dangerous woman in America'.At her death in 1930 at the age of ninety-three, thousands paid tribute at a Washington, D.C., memorial service, and again at her burial in the only union-owned cemetery in America in the small mining town of Mount Olive, Illinois. As noted in The New York Times, the Rev. W. R. McGuire, who conducted her burial, said, 'Wealthy coal operators and capitalists throughout the United States are breathing a sigh of relief while toil-worn men and women are weeping tears of bitter grief.'The courage of Mother Jones is notorious and admired to this day. Cordery effectively recounts her story in this accessible biography, bringing to life an amazing woman and explaining the dramatic times through which she lived and to which she contributed so much.