The Delight Makers: A Novel of Prehistoric Pueblo Indians

by Adolph Francis Alphonse Bandelier

Book Overview

The author, an archaeologist who spent eight years among the Pueblo tribes of New Mexico, provides in fictional form an invaluable reconstruction of prehistoric Indian culture of the Southwest. Introduction by Stefan Jovanovich.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0156252643
• ISBN13: 9780156252645
• Release Date: September 1971
• Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
• Length: 528 Pages
• Weight: 1.32 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.3" x 5.3" x 8.0"

Customer Reviews

An American Treasure

I taught a high school senior elective called Literature of the American West and included The Delight Makers. It was the highlight, along with Owen Wister's original Western, The Virginian, of the class. Bandelier reimagines the lives of the cliff-dwellers, based on his first of a kind, primary, on-site research, and tells a story that is captivating, vivid and extraordinary, bringing us into the heart and mind, albeit envisioned by a white European male, of the native American culture. But, I for one, think the spirit in which he envisioned and wrote his tale is of the same spirit which guided and fostered and, eventually, destroyed the cliff-dwellers. If my not-above-average high school seniors delighted in this book -- you will, too. Once you get into the story, any awkwardness to Bandelier's language is washed away in the ongoing stream of an amazing narrative.