If there's a subject as touchy as water in these parts, it's the Smoki People. Candace McNulty lends her even hand to both this month.

It helps to understand the context of the objections to the Smoki. Prescott's Smoki formed at a time when popular culture still embraced the illusion of the “Vanishing American.” After four centuries of exploitation and deliberate genocide of the indigenous peoples, at around 1890 media-driven popular perception of Native Americans changed. No longer barbaric, murderous savages impeding Manifest Destiny, they were now a people sadly on the road to extinction. The word “vanishing” allowed the responsible dominant culture to dismiss its own culpability.

The reality, however, is that even before the first Smoki performance in1921 the federal government was acting out a policy to intentionally “vanish” these Americans, forcing them to assimilate into a mainstream culture that held official prejudices against all but Whites. Native Americans didn't just lose their lands and their lives. The survivors lost their children, forcibly taken away to missionary boarding schools where the government and churches operated hand in glove to reprogram them. The government also banned their religious practices, again with the complicity of missionaries. This isn't ancient history – this was still happening in the 1970s, a full decade after the civil rights movement began upsetting prejudice-as-policy in America.

Native Americans won this “Indian War” to make them vanish. Though overwhelmed by superior numbers and weaponry, their cultures remain because they are superior in other ways. For that argument I refer you to the most important cultural anthropology book in many decades, In the Absence of the Sacred: the Failure of Technology and the Survival of the Indian Nations by Jerry Mander (1991).

There's something very curious, ironic really, in the comments of the former Smoki participants. In their exploitation of the Hopi dance, they found the same emotional and deep psychological (did anyone say “spiritual?”) experience that binds such cultures If there's a subject as touchy as water in these parts, it's the Smoki People. Candace McNulty lends her even hand to both this month.

It helps to understand the context of the objections to the Smoki. Prescott's Smoki formed at a time when popular culture still embraced the illusion of the “Vanishing American.” After four centuries of exploitation and deliberate genocide of the indigenous peoples, at around 1890 media-driven popular perception of Native Americans changed. No longer barbaric, murderous savages impeding Manifest Destiny, they were now a people sadly on the road to extinction. The word “vanishing” allowed the responsible dominant culture to dismiss its own culpability.

The reality, however, is that even before the first Smoki performance in1921 the federal government was acting out a policy to intentionally “vanish” these Americans, forcing them to assimilate into a mainstream culture that held official prejudices against all but Whites. Native Americans didn't just lose their lands and their lives. The survivors lost their children, forcibly taken away to missionary boarding schools where the government and churches operated hand in glove to reprogram them. The government also banned their religious practices, again with the complicity of missionaries. This isn't ancient history – this was still happening in the 1970s, a full decade after the civil rights movement began upsetting prejudice-as-policy in America.

Native Americans won this “Indian War” to make them vanish. Though overwhelmed by superior numbers and weaponry, their cultures remain because they are superior in other ways. For that argument I refer you to the most important cultural anthropology book in many decades, In the Absence of the Sacred: the Failure of Technology and the Survival of the Indian Nations by Jerry Mander (1991).

There's something very curious, ironic really, in the comments of the former Smoki participants. In their exploitation of the Hopi dance, they found the same emotional and deep psychological (did anyone say “spiritual?”) experience that binds such cultures.

Go hike or bike now. While the rest of the country celebrates National Trails Day in June, we do it in a more hospitable April; a perusal of these pages will let you know what's happening where and how to get involved.

Go sailing. Yes, sailing in the high desert. Again, the info is inside.

Go fish. Arizona Game & Fish is stocking local waters with rainbow trout, but that stops when the weather warms up. You've probably already missed the one-day salmon season (page14).

There's also kayaking, canoeing, bird watching, gold panning, picnicking and more to do here. The point is, get out and do it while you can. You won't regret it, and you might regret not doing it.

-Art Merrill