or twenty years, the audio-visual presentation, Our Voices, Our Land, has captured the hearts of visitors to The Heard Museum in Phoenix. This program, an almost overwhelming collage of faces, landscape, and words, brings to life Southwest Indian people. Native Americans have applauded it. To reach a wider audience, the show was distilled by its creators in this book.



The Indian people themselves do the speaking here. These voices come from ten tribes in Arizona and northern New Mexico: elders, teenagers, medicine women, artists, tribal chairmen, teachers--a cross-section of contemporary Indian people of the Southwest. They speak about everything of concern in their lives: the past, the present, and the future. In doing so, they eloquently communicate their complexity, vitality, and grace.



The land is here, too, from Monument Valley to the saguaro cacti of the Sonoran Desert, from the Pueblo villages around Santa Fe to the Grand Canyon. In a remarkable selection of photographs, Stephen Trimble and Harvey Lloyd have captured the power of the southwestern landscape and the spirit of its native peoples. Carefully chosen black-and-white historical photos provide contrast and perspective.



Seven thematic sections tell the story: The Land, Sustenance, Family, Community, Ceremony, Artists, and Continuity. The book's design echoes the simplicity and power of the slide program. Faces fill double page spreads. Landscapes span three-panel panoramas, many of them aerial views. Trimble and Lloyd share fascinating background on their travels in Indian Country, especially Trimble's stories of his work interviewing the speakers in the book.



Our Voices, Our Land will move you, stimulate you, and permanently change the way you perceive American Indians and their land.