THE SHOSHONEANS

Not a historical treatise at all, this is a ""with it"" account of a contemporary trip into Idaho, Utah and Nevada to find out about ""a people who are still very potential in this hemisphere"" although they are among the oldest Americans. Among the ""people of the Basin-Plateau"" are Willie Dorsey (102 years old) and his wife who together form ""a substantial prayer of flesh, plasma, spirit,"" a young ""acculturated"" Reno Paiute, a drunken steer-wrestler...Edward Dorn (white) and LeRoy Lucas (black) travelled to Reno and Lovelock (""they're mean in Lovelock""), to Pyramid Lake and Duck Valley (""an inherently excellent place""); saw Indians in cities and on reservations. LeRoy danced the sundance ritual for three days without food, came out of it with a new clarity and calm. His photographs, not seen here, include pictures of the sundance itself, never before photographed, along with wordless commentaries on the clash of cultures and ""faces one cannot forget"" (the publisher).