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sa国际传媒官网网页入口 author Steven L. Davis believes he is doing something that hasn鈥檛 been done before.

In his clarifying, enjoyable new book of narrative nonfiction, 鈥淏eating Heart of the World,鈥� Davis connects New Mexicans who haven鈥檛 been linked before and reveals information about their public lives.

鈥淚 feel like it鈥檚 an epic book. There are so many different characters. I was trying to keep the stories humming, moving forward,鈥� Davis said in a phone interview.

The book opens with a familiar story.

The first Anglo artists to arrive in Taos from the East Coast were Bert Phillips and Ernest Blumenschein. Nearing Taos in late summer of 1898, they spent their last few dollars to repair a wheel of their horse-drawn wagon.

What may not be so familiar is the artists had earlier faced trials after getting off a train in Denver.

One of their horses fell over a cliff, a flash flood nearly washed away all of their gear, and armed bandits raided their camp but gave up when they only found art and art supplies.

But Phillips and Blumenschein pushed ahead. They rented a house near the Taos plaza.

Phillips was drawn to the beauty of Taos Mountain and to the Pueblo鈥檚 peaceful, cooperative life, now busy with harvest season.

Gazing at the Pueblo鈥檚 architecture, Davis writes, this was the vision Phillips had been seeking ever since he picked up his first paintbrush.

Phillips spent hours creating portraits of Sun Elk (Manuel Mondrag贸n). Others from the Pueblo followed as Phillips鈥� models.

Phillips made Taos his year-round home. Blumenschein returned to New York to promote Taos, his art and Phillips鈥� work.

The first to reply to the promotion was Oscar Berninghaus, a commercial artist from St. Louis, Missouri. He stayed in Taos for eight days and painted portraits of Taos Pueblo people.

And, Davis writes, famed painter Frederic Remington visited Taos for a week, made sketches and praised the mountains.

Meanwhile, Phillips made fast friends with Lester Myers, as Davis described him, 鈥渁 small man who was a big talker.鈥� The friendship got them into trouble.

Davis described a contretemps over Phillips and Myers declining to remove their hats during a procession in honor of the Virgen de Guadalupe.

The two men were jailed, but not before the sheriff was shot in a barroom brawl. Military reinforcements were called to quiet things.

Davis provides context for Phillips鈥� turn-of-the-century move to Taos.

He was part of a wave of Anglos seeking their fortune. Others included miners, ranchers, loggers, bankers, bar owners, speculators and grifters.

Davis鈥� book explains Taos Pueblo鈥檚 intelligent conservation practices and how those resulted in some of northern New Mexico鈥檚 richest forests and grasslands.

However, he writes, the Pueblo believed it had to protect its long-held property against an array of Anglo profiteers.

According to Davis, stockmen began driving their sheep and cattle onto Pueblo land to graze; homesteaders erected cabins on Native property hoping to win government approval for extravagant land claims; rogue prospectors dug mines and loggers conducted illegal operations.

Davis writes Sun Elk told Phillips about the Pueblo鈥檚 environmental concerns because the Pueblo might soon need the artist as a political ally. They were aware that Phillips鈥� art was gaining national renown.

The Pueblo especially wanted to maintain its control over Blue Lake, which it long considered a sacred tribal treasure. The lake had spiritual value, not mineral wealth.

Blue Lake is a dominant point of controversy throughout the book and is related to years of political chicanery and legislative maneuvering.

The federal government鈥檚 push to dispossess Natives nationwide was rooted in the 1887 Dawes Act. The law called for the assimilation of the remaining Indigenous people and 鈥渓iberating鈥� them from reservations. The same law shipped Native children to far-off boarding schools where their tribal languages, cultures and religions were replaced by lessons on Christianity.

Phillips, meanwhile, had his own worries: his eyesight was failing after years of painting in a dimly lit studio. He needed to take a break.

Phillips landed a job as a forest ranger on the newly established federal Taos Forest Reserve. Part of his job was to protect the Blue Lake watershed.

But another new law opened up the national forests to settlers. The Forest Reserve Homestead Act allowed individuals to file for land claims up to 160 acres.

Phillips signed up as a partner in a land fraud scheme with Myers and a state senator, canceling Phillips鈥� warm relations with the Pueblo for decades.

In the early part of the 20th century there was no unified national movement to protect Native cultures or lands.

At least not until the magnetic Mabel Dodge Sterne arrived in Taos. 

鈥淎t age 38, Mabel was the darling of the American avant-garde. Fascinated by modern art, radical politics, feminism, mysticism and psychoanalysis, Mabel championed rebels and promoted their causes,鈥� Davis writes.

In her Greenwich Village apartment in the 1910s, she presided over weekly salon discussions. Among those attending were author Sinclair Lewis, playwright Eugene O鈥橬eill, birth control crusader Margaret Sanger, feminist advocate Mary Austin and up-and-coming artist Georgia O鈥橩eeffe.

Mabel quit New York for Taos and began touting the peaceful ways of New Mexico鈥檚 Pueblo people just as World War I raged in Europe.

In November 1917 Mabel went back to see the Taos art colony鈥檚 first-ever group show in New York City. She preferred modernist artists and was not a fan of the colony鈥檚 sentimental portraits.

Taking a nap after seeing the colony鈥檚 show, she had a fleeting vision of her husband鈥檚 face.

It dimmed and was replaced by the face of a new man.

Back in Taos, she realized the man in that vision was Tony Luj谩n of Taos Pueblo. They became lovers, and he would become her fourth husband, but spelling her last name Luhan.

Mabel spread the word about the Pueblo to other bohemian friends. The couple became catalysts in pushing for Pueblo resistance to political and social influences harmful to the Pueblo.

One person she told was social reformer John Collier, a longtime friend who was working among New York鈥檚 poor immigrants. He said he had no time to look into Native causes. Collier finally yielded to Mabel鈥檚 pleas to visit Taos Pueblo. At the Pueblo he found life radically different from any society he had known 鈥� no harshness or quarreling, no child harshly scolded, no adolescents alienated from their families.

Collier鈥檚 strident lectures on Native life got the attention of a service organization, the General Federation of Women鈥檚 Clubs. That resulted in Collier getting a two-year assignment to investigate Pueblo living conditions and recommend specific actions to improve them.

Collier began to lead the opposition to a Senate-passed bill that could devastate communal life at Taos Pueblo.

Called the Bursum Bill, its chief sponsor was U.S. Sen. Holm Bursum of New Mexico. Collier helped to defeat it.

Collier widened Mabel鈥檚 idea of building a Pueblo resistance to centuries of dispossession and cultural extinction, the prologue states.

He wanted to empower and revitalize Indigenous America.

Collier also tangled with several of New Mexico鈥檚 prominent politicians.

Among them were former territorial governor H.J. Hagerman and Albert B. Fall, a former U.S. senator from New Mexico, who later served as U.S. Interior secretary. Fall was convicted of bribery in the Teapot Dome scandal in 1929.

Collier worked tirelessly with Pueblo people for years to revolutionize federal policies toward Natives.

His hard work paid off. President Franklin D. Roosevelt named Collier as Indian Commissioner in 1933, a post he held for almost 12 years. Collier led the fight to overturn the Dawes Act.

It was not until 1970 鈥� with endorsements from President Richard M. Nixon and Bert Phillips 鈥� that Collier overcame opposition from U.S. Sen. Clinton Anderson of New Mexico to persuade Congress to pass a law to authorize Taos Pueblo to regain possession of Blue Lake.