Indian Country

A quick sequel to In the Spirit of Crazy Horse: just as powerful but more depressing--as Matthiessen travels around the country, meeting traditional Indian leaders, backpacking to Indian holy places (all threatened and at least partly desecrated by mining, logging, dams, and other forms of white aggression), and documenting other Indian miseries. He begins with the embattled Miccosukee in the Everglades, visits the Hopi reservation in Arizona, moves on to the site of the Tellico Dam (which flooded a Cherokee burial ground), gingerly explores intra-tribal hostility among the Mohawks on the St. Lawrence River, and hikes with Yurok and Karuk friends in the High Siskiyous. He recounts the efforts of the Black Hills Alliance (Indians, environmentalists, and ranchers) against uranium pollution, the successful struggle to save ancient Indian sites on Point Concepcion (CA) from a greedy power consortium, the repeated failures of the Pit River Indians to defend their ancestral lands east of Mt. Shasta from Pacific Gas & Electric (and the BIA), and a host of similar problems afflicting the Paiute, Shoshone, and Navajo. Throughout the book Matthiessen combines avowedly partisan reportage (not just pro-Indian, but pro-traditional Indians vs. the Tribal Councils and their assimilated constituencies) and expressive nature-writing (the outdoors as sacred space, not just aesthetic amphitheater). He might have been a little kinder to the Feds (e.g., by acknowledging that the forced reduction of Navajo sheep herds was absolutely necessary to halt overgrazing), but considering the scenes he witnessed, he's quite restrained.