Life Among the Modocs: Unwritten History by Joaquin Miller (review)

Reviews 271 press, making its accuracy suspect, or in publications which simply repeat the old saws over and over again. Manuscripts, government records and scholarly dissertations have always been available in scattered repositories, but what has been lacking is a solid history of the area to provide a background and a con­ text for primary materials. With the publication of Death Valley & The Amargosa: A Land of Illusions, Dr. Lingenfelter has made possible a renais­ sance in Death Valley studies and rescued the subject from the clutches of history buffs and popular writers, not that they themselves would not benefit from a careful reading of the book. Lingenfelter has tapped not only the pri­ mary sources, but obscure items in such rare publications as Touring Topics, long unavailable to most writers, and Desert Magazine, a valuable tool for surveying the nature of popular interest in Death Valley. Covering the period from the first white intrusions in the 1840s to the creation of Death Valley National Monument in February, 1933, Lingenfelter chronicles three interrelated phases of Death Valley’s history: the passing of the early immigrants through the area, the development of the mining industry and the beginnings of modern day tourism. In addition, he deals with the tradition of lost mines, the saga of the mapping and surveying of the valley, military activities, biological and botanical surveys, myths and folklore and all the colorful characters who have had some association with the area, including Walter Scott (“Death Valley Scotty”),one among many individuals who have made a profession of scamming potential investors in the mines. In many ways, the book is encyclopedic and will be so used by researchers seeking placename origins, a place to start in studying certain mining opera­ tions or a fix on the chronology of the mining camps which came to grace that rough land. Indexing, footnoting and bibliography are more than adequate. Indeed, they take up nearly a third of the book. As to the subtitle, Lingenfelter pursues this theme through his analysis of the hopes of those who first ventured across Death Valley, the illusions of later seekers of lost mines and the expectations of entrepreneurs who sought their fortunes within its confines. All in all, a magnificent tome on a subject which has long needed this sort of treatment. PHILLIP I. EARL Nevada Historical Society Life Among the Modocs: Unwritten History. By Joaquin Miller. (San Jose: Urion Press, 1987. 407 pages, $8.95 paper, $19.95 cloth.) When Life Among the Modocs: Unwritten History was first published in 1873, it did not receive critical evaluation in this country. One of the reasons 272 Western American Literature for this, perhaps, was that, as Alan Rosenus points out in his excellent intro­ duction to this present edition, “It was the first serious attempt in a reform novel to change the attitude of the whites toward the Indians.” Miller’s plea for the rights of Indians and his accurate prediction of their inevitable fate strike an ironic chord when read over a century later. And his ecological laments over the destruction of the forests, the pollution of the streams and rivers, and the erosion of the earth would, perhaps, in themselves have been sufficient to guarantee Miller’s unpopularity in that age of uncontrolled and irresponsible expansion. This first-person story is based in large part on Miller’s own experiences. (In his introduction, Rosenus has done an excellent job of distinguishing fact from fiction.) That parts of it are imaginative does not, for me, detract from its value as a cultural and social document. Miller’s accounts of his life with both Indians and Whites in northern California in the 1850s make interesting and entertaining reading. I think I can say that even wtere it is admittedly not well written, its content is fascinating. Some contemporary readers might object to Miller’s outspoken .emo­ tionalism, his rampant idealism, and his unrealistic enthusiasm. However, I think such expansiveness simply goes with the territory: Miller was an unabashed romantic in an unabashedly romantic age. While a jealous Bret Harte was telling American editors that nothing Miller wrote was true, we can be grateful that Mark Twain in 1872...