Karla Cavarra Britton

Contemporary Navajo artist Shonto Begay’s mantra is “art saves lives.” Art, he argues, brings goodness, beauty, healing, and strength to human life. He describes himself as “a living, breathing testimonial” to the truth of this statement because it was art that kept his voice and spirit alive in the harsh conditions of his childhood when he was taken away from his family and forced into a boarding school (Brady, 2020).

By Chadwick Allen University of Minnesota Press (2022) 395 pages Review by Karla Cavarra Britton Serpent Mound. Cahokia. great Circle. Aztalan. These are among the pre-Columbian earthworks constructed over more than 5,000 years across eastern North America. The earthen mounds vary in scale and form—some, like Cahokia, are colossal—most often serving as deep ossuaries and representing effigies of animals, reptiles, and birds.

“The radioactive ‘yellow dirt’ has ended up in [the Navajos’] drinking supplies, in their walls and floors, in their playgrounds, in their bread ovens, in their churches, and even in their garbage dumps. And they are still dying.” So reads the cover jacket from Judy Pasternak’s 2010 book, Yellow Dirt, exploring the effects of uranium mining on the landscape and inhabitants of the Navajo Nation.