Papago Woman [SOLD]

1979. 1985, reissued by Waveland Press.

From the Foreword:

The Autobiography of a Papago Woman was first published in 1936, as Memoir 46 of the American Anthropological Association. It has since then stood as one of the autobiographical classics in literature on the traditional cultures of native North America. As a now scarce memoir, available only in university libraries and some private collections, it is infrequently read by undergraduate students in introductory anthropology courses or in courses on American Indian cultures. The publication of the autobiography as the core of the present case study makes the material widely available. Fortunately Ruth Underhill has been able to add substantial sections of description and interpretation, as Parts I and III of this case study. These sections will make even more vivid for the student reader what Chona, the Papago woman, says about herself in her autobiography through the ethnographer. She is about ninety years old as she recalls her early life, which probably began around the mid-1840s. Part I sets the stage with a sensitive description of how the ethnographer experienced Papago culture in the years 1931-1933. Though written forty five years later, these pages bring the situation, the people, and the ethnographer\'s experience into sharp, vivid focus. Part II is the autobiography itself, unchanged from the way it was first published forty-two years ago. The original introduction to the autobiography is retained as well. Part III extends our understanding of the Papago by drawing our attention to features of Papago life that are touched upon in the autobiography but that benefit from explicit expansion.

Included in this case study is a foreword by Ruth Benedict, written about 1933 but never before published.