The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 44, July 1940 - April, 1941 Page: 274

Southwestern Historical Quarterly

the community under observation. Two chapters are devoted
to a description of Pascua, its history and present economy;
seven chapters are given over to social organization and cere-
monialism; the two remaining chapters consist of interpreta-
tion and theory. Spicer is able to show that there is serious
conflict at present between the ceremonial demands and the
matter of making a living. This may eventually result in a
breakdown of the society, but at the moment there are no clear
indications of it. In the final chapter Spicer presents evidence
to show that on the basis of Pascuan data some modification
should be made in the theory of functional inconsistency as
formulated by Radcliffe-Brown. Here it becomes evident that
the wider the range of societies studied and analyzed by social
anthropologists, the more difficult it is to generalize about the
nature of human society. More studies of this sort are needed.
Like this one, they will doubtless result in drastic modification
of current theory.
T. N. CAMPBELL.
The University of Texas.
Our Southwest. By Erma Fergusson.
New York and London: Alfred A. Knopf, 1940. Pp. vi, 376.
Illustrations, maps. $3.50.
This book comes to the reader in a handsome jacket with the
colors of the American Southwest predominating. This jacket
shows palms, fruits, cacti, Indians, sheep, pottery, a Gila mon-
ster, an oil derrick, a padre, a pueblo, a totem pole, and cattle
amidst the cities of the Southwest--San Antonio, El Paso,
Tucson, Phoenix, Santa Fe, Albuquerque, and Denver-just to
mention a few. And once you have begun to read you do not
lose sight of these familiar persons, creatures, objects, and
cities. In larger numbers they made and are making the South-
west-and the author will not let you forget them. Although
the colors of the jacket do not actually adorn the pages of the
book, the colors of the Southwest are constantly before you-
if you have ever seen them and your memory of them is good.
The front and back inside covers reproduce the old "Amerique
Septentrionale" map of 1674. A map of northern New Spain
about 1700 shows the important Spanish expeditions made into
the Southwest; another of southwestern United States about

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