The People
Indians of the American Southwest
Best Southwestern Books of 1993, Arizona Daily Star
1993 Mountains and Plains Booksellers Award finalist
"...the best general introduction to the native peoples of the Southwest that has ever been published. Nor is it good only by comparison: it is a superb book. It combines the traditional concerns of ethnography, ethnohistory, and prehistory with a newer one of letting native voices speak for themselves." —Alfonso Ortiz (Ohkay Owingeh Pueblo)
"Stephen Trimble’s The People is a valuable addition to the library of anyone interested in the Indian cultures of the Southwest. It may well become one of those classics that stay in print forever." —Tony Hillerman
"Trimble’s introduction to these cultures is exceptional; he redefines American ethnography..." —Library Journal
"Many of his photographs...are destined to become classics in the history of the Indians of our time." —Utah Historical Quarterly
"…each family moving to the Southwest from elsewhere should be sent a clean copy… The People isn’t quite a page-turner, but it’s close—a remarkable accomplishment in a work of detailed non-fiction." —Colorado Plateau Advocate
"...a monumental endeavor to flesh out the modern economic, spiritual, political and artistic milieus in which Indians of the Southwest find themselves ... presents a living portrait of a deeply oppressed people....This book does an immense service to all those interested in modern reservation life and the future of indigenous cultures, and in the prospects of the American way of life in general." —The Bloomsbury Review
Fifty Native nations lie within the modern American Southwest—communities sustained through four centuries of European and American contact by their cultural traditions and ties to the land. In The People, Stephen Trimble provides a deep introduction to these Indigenous peoples that is unrivaled in its scope and readability. With a conversational yet thoroughly-researched text, a wealth of maps and historic photographs, and the author’s penetrating contemporary photographic portraits and landscapes, The People is the indispensable book for anyone interested in the Native people of the Southwest.
Trimble first worked in Southwest Indian country in 1984, photographing and interviewing for a slide show at The Heard Museum in Phoenix about contemporary Southwest Indian people. That show, Our Voices, Our Land, became a book, and that interview-based approach led to the first edition of Talking with the Clay: the Art of Pueblo Pottery (1987) and culminated with The People.
Trimble spent ten years visiting reservation communities, making friends and speaking with dozens of Native people. In The People, he provides enough historical background to make his rich coverage of Indian Country even more compelling. The well-known tribes are here: Apache, Navajo, Pueblo, and Tohono O'odham. Even more satisfying are the stories of less prominent Native peoples like the Hualapai, the Paiute Tribe of Utah, the Quechan, and the Yavapai.
In 2022, Steve donated his archive of photographs from Indian Country to the Arizona State Museum in Tucson. He speaks with the Museum at length about the stories behind his Native American photographs in this video.
(SAR Press, 1993)
Excerpt: Front Matter and intro: “We Are the People"
