Barbara Tedlock

Based on over twenty years' research at Zuni Pueblo in New Mexico, this honest and respectful book takes us into the heart of one Zuni family and allows us to witness the world through its members' eyes. We see the joys of love, marriage, and childbirth and the tragedies of illness, alcoholism, and death. We rediscover the South-western landscape, its plants and wildlife, in light of traditional Zuni teachings. 'The Beautiful and the Dangerous' was originally published in 1992.

Described as a landmark in the ethnographic study of the Maya, this study of ritual and cosmology among the contemporary Quiche Indians of highland Guatemala has now been updated to address changes that have occurred in the last decade. The Classic Mayan obsession with time has never been better known. Here, Barbara Tedlock redirects our attention to the present-day keepers of the ancient calendar. Combining anthropology with formal apprenticeship to a diviner, she refutes long-held ethnographic assumptions and opens a door to the order of the Mayan cosmos and its daily ritual. Unable to visit the region for over ten years, Tedlock returned in 1989 to find that observance of the traditional calendar and religion is stronger than ever, despite a brutal civil war. ". . . a well-written, highly readable, and deeply convincing contribution. . . ." --Michael Coe