Laguna Pueblo: A Photographic History by Lee Marmon and Tom Corbett (review)

From the anecdotal to far-reaching historical contexts, this photographic and narrative journey achieves what its authors propose: to record the story of Laguna Pueblo so that it may be preserved and passed on. More than a solely documentary account, the book is an insider’s view of how individuals’ lives and experiences form the matrix of cultural survival amidst change.

Both authors, the Native American photographer Lee Marmon and his lifelong friend Tom Corbett, spent considerable time at the pueblo—Marmon, who still lives there, mostly from childhood on, and Corbett, in the 1960s, as a physician. The two men first met when Marmon greeted the young doctor who had moved in next door as a Bureau of Indian Affairs health officer. Marmon is from a prominent Laguna family; several Marmon generations were active on the reservation as traders, educators, militia men, even governors. Given the unique influx of Anglos due to Laguna’s location, some, like the Marmons, who married into the tribe, greatly influenced the pueblo whose challenge was to adapt to the modern world without losing the ancient ways.

Marmon chronicles Laguna life, from its high desert geography and storied beginnings to influences from the conquistadors, the Civil War, the railroad, the roundup of the Apaches, Route 66, uranium mining, to present-day concerns, including health care and language preservation. This is the most comprehensive published history of any of the southwestern pueblos. Marmon’s oral history combines with that of tribal elders and key academic sources to reconstruct the events, customs, and religious practices of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

What stands out in this volume are the one hundred striking black-and-white photographs (gleaned from more than 100,000), a pictorial narrative supplemented with archival and family photographs. Marmon’s work began when he was a boy delivering groceries around the reservation. Having seen a photograph of his aunt when she was a young, beautiful woman, he realized the value of capturing the indomitable character of the pueblo. Particularly the portraits are a poignant record: Aunt Susie, who lived to be 110 years old; Old Man Jeff in his tennis shoes in a photo called “White Man’s Moccasins”; past governors, potters, ranchers, drummers, and dancers.

The most recent photo, dated 1990—a twisted juniper firm against the eroding sandstone—reminds us of the persistent tenacity of the Lagunas still today. Despite drought and disease, invasions of the Spanish and Anglos, the construction of railroads and highways, the many broken promises, including nonpayment of Laguna militia during the Indian wars and lack of restoration following uranium mining, Laguna has not only survived but, considering the odds, flourished. As a broad account of the traditions and changes that shape a Great Plains people, this book is a vivid testimony to the particular genius of Lagunas.