Book Reading & Signing of
Big Sycamore Stands Alone
with
Author Ian Record
Saturday, March 7th at 7:00 p.m.
Dinnerware Artspace
264 E. Congress
Tucson, Arizona
About the book:Â In a groundbreaking debut of its New Directions in Native American Studies series, the University of Oklahoma Press announced the release of Big Sycamore Stands Alone: The Western Apaches, Aravaipa, and the Struggle for Place, a trailblazing ethnohistory of the Western Apaches, a place called Aravaipa, and the event known as the Camp Grant Massacre.
Called a “powerful and moving work,” the book represents the culmination of a decade of collaborative work between author Ian Record and the San Carlos Apache Elders Cultural Advisory Council, a tribal organization which works to sustain and strengthen traditional Apache culture and knowledge for the benefit of future generations of Apaches.
Book will be available for purchase at special discount price of $32 (20% off).
Refreshments will be provided
For more info, call Wendy at 808-9237.
end of press release
I know where Aravaipa is.
It’s quite a way west of Patagonia Creek that runs through the Patagonia Mountains to the east of where I live. The title, Big Sycamore Stands Alone, instant called to my mind the big sycamore standing in a pulloff from the highway along patagonia creek.

Sadly, this is the best image I can find of the work that features the sycamore. I have no idea what I have done with my source photographs.
It’s a special place to me. I know that it must be as special to the, Chiricahuas, the Mescalero, the Tohono O’odham, and the Pasqua Yaqui.
A century and a half ago these tribes, while not friendly collaborators, roamed southeastern Arizona. They foraged not only for food and game, many foraged for the materials to make baskets and containers for daily life.
Although I have not met the author of the book, I know that the reseach backing it has the impramatur of the University of Oklahoma Press. That alone recommends it to me.
Let’s see if I can find the whole image of the Patagonia Mountains. It will give you some, faint, view of what this land looked like in the nineteenth century.
Sadly, my digital files and my print files are not in the same place. They do not duplicate each other. The best I can find this morning is this WIP, on the wall. It does not have the fauna nor the sky. The size and resolution are minimal. It’s at least a glimpse.
