TIPI RINGS: A CHRONICLE OF THE JICARILLA APACHE LAND CLAIM
by Robert J. Norhaus
About the Book and the Author
"...it was necessary to identify these early bands, to establish that
they later became one tribe, and to show that these bands occupied and
used the claim area exclusively of other tribes from 'time immemorial.'
...Given such a background, the Jicarilla Apache Tribe's pursuit of its
ancestral lands was anything but straightforward."
Thus the introduction to TIPI RINGS frames the tale of a
remarkable legal and cultural odyssey. Until his retirement, Robert J.
Nordhaus was an attorney with an Albuquerque law firm recognized as one
of the nation's most prominent in the area of American Indian law. This
active New Mexican (Nordhaus was also founder of what is now
Albuquerque's Sandia Peak Tramway) has chronicled the thirteen year
(1958-1971) litigation of a historical land claim argued by Mr. Nordhaus
and Denver attorneys Richard M. Davis and Robert O. Harry before the
Indian Claims Commission on behalf of the Jicarilla Apache Tribe of
Dulce, New Mexico against the United States.
TIPI RINGS is a tightly and colorfully woven story of a legal
case that circumscribes the worlds of U.S. land claim history; New Mexico
and southwestern settlement, ethnology, anthropology and archaeology
(including another internationally known character, anthropologist and
big game hunter, Dr. Frank Hibben, a key witness in the proceedings);
and, not least, the Jicarilla and their way of life, as it was and as it is.
THE AUDIENCE
Historians and history buffs, students of the American Indian and
Indian Affairs; teachers of anthropology, archaeology, and the social
sciences; lawyers and law students--all will find a strand of particular
interest in Mr. Nordhaus' compelling and highly informative account. The
intricacies of his more than decade-long court drama and painstaking
piecing together of a solid legal case also just happen to be replete
with heroes, villains, and the intrigue of good fiction.
Students of law and legal pracititioners will find the in-text
citations to case documentation extrememly useful. The precedents and
social context that influenced the outcome of this major Indian
land-claim settlement are valid for the researcher of today. A study of
TIPI RINGS is to be well-armed to investigate and assess the similar
issues of law that continue to be examined in the Southwest and all
across the United States.
PUBLICATION FACTS
Cloth HC w. gold stamp
244 pp.
B/W line drawings, photos, maps
Notes/Bibliography/List of Authorities/Index
$21.95/ISBN # 1-885931-00-X
LCC # 94-78671
FOR MORE INFORMATION OR TO ORDER, CONTACT:
Bow/Arrow Publishing Company
c/o Tiller Research, Inc.
505 Marquette Ave., NW, Suite 126-A
Albuquerque, NM 87102
IF ORDERING MORE THAN 5 BOOKS, CALL: 1-800-895-8668
They accept Mastercard and Visa. Bow Arrow Publishing Company is a
subsidiary of Tiller Research, Inc., an Indian-owned company.
RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED BY:
Sandra Mathews-Lamb
Dept of History
U of New Mexico
Albuquerque, NM 87131