Survival Arts Of The Primitive Paiutes [Paperback]

Margaret M. Wheat (Author)

Product Details

• Paperback: 140 pages
• Publisher: University of Nevada Press (January 1, 1977)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0874170486
• ISBN-13: 978-0874170481
• Product Dimensions: 10.8 x 8.9 x 0.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #551,276 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

16 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The voices of the old ones., May 30, 2000

By 

krit y hatton (USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Survival Arts Of The Primitive Paiutes (Paperback)

My grandmother wrote this book. It is dedicated to a people who's fathers survived with stone tools and whose son's saw a man walk on the moon.

My grandmother tried to record the vansishing skills of her friends, the Paiutes of Tonapa, Washoe, and Goldfield. Female anthropologists were rare, and my grandmother was a rare and special woman.

Sensitive to the people she recorded. Savage to those that threatened them.

Here is a story not in the book but that you must know. A man scraping bat guano out of caves refused to stop despite my grandmothers please that is was destroying a priceless archaeological find. With no law protecting indian artifacts she took matter's into her own hands and dynamited the mountain-creating the famous "hidden caves". Three years before her death from diabetes she revealed their location and today she is a state heroine in Nevada.

Any student of Native American history must read this book by this exceptional woman and compare. She was as brave as the West, and made of the same land as her old friends in the book.

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent resource, July 27, 2005

By 

Willow Polson "writer and whatnot." (Groveland, Calif.) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Survival Arts Of The Primitive Paiutes (Paperback)

I have owned this book for many years, and it's a wonderful resource for anyone wishing to explore this way of life. Many clear photographs illustrate the techniques and skills within, which include items for hunting, basketry, gathering materials, and much more. No other book does as much to illustrate how the Paiutes and other nearby tribes survived and thrived in the harsh Great Basin area of California and Nevada.

The knowledge and images were captured at an important moment in time -- by talking to and learning from some of the few remaining traditional elders of the region, the author has preserved a little more of the Old Ways that might have been gone forever or lost to the memories of but a very few. We owe a lot to her for the creation of this book.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent resource, May 14, 2009

By 

Owen C. Evans (Tacoma, WA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Survival Arts Of The Primitive Paiutes (Paperback)

This is a truly excellent resource, and everything you would hope it would be. Often books such as this, with a title such as this, leave a great deal to be desired, but this book does not fail to deliver.

Additionally, it's a very thorough account of the way of life of the Paiute. As a child, I was born and raised in Yerington, NV and my upbringing was thick with exposure to the Paiute tribe and their ways. The things I learned from the tribe, everything from spirituality to the way I see the world, will always be a part of me.

This book continues to be one of my most prized books in my ever growing library - the one I am quickest to show others.