If you are looking for books about our region you can't do any better than those written by Jim Griffith. I've copy/pasted in descriptions from Amazon. And, you can visit Amazon's page for Big Jim.
Beliefs and Holy Places: A Spiritual Geography of the Pimeria Alta
The region once known as Pimería Alta--now southern Arizona and northern Sonora--has for more than three centuries been a melting pot for the beliefs of native Tohono O'odham and immigrant Yaquis and those of colonizing Spaniards and Mexicans. One need look no further than the roadside crosses along desert highways or the diversity of local celebrations to sense the richness of this cultural commingling. Folklorist Jim Griffith has lived in the Pimería Alta for more than thirty years, visiting its holy places and attending its fiestas, and has uncovered a background of belief, tradition, and history lying beneath the surface of these cultural expressions. In Beliefs and Holy Places, he reveals some of the supernaturally sanctioned relationships that tie people to places within that region, describing the cultural and religious meanings of locations and showing how bonds between people and places have in turn created relationships between places, a spiritual geography undetectable on physical maps. Throughout the book, Griffith shows how culture moves from legend to art to belief to practice, all the while serving as a dynamic link between past and future. Now as the desert gives way to newcomers, Griffith's book offers visitors and residents alike a rare opportunity to share in these rich traditions.
Folk Saints of the Borderlands: Victims, Bandits & Healers
This extraordinary exploration of the frontiers of spirituality is by celebrated Southwestern folklorist James S. "Big Jim" Griffith. In Folk Saints of the Borderlands: Victims, Bandits, and Healers, Griffith introduces us to some unforgettable saints-in-the-making (or not).
Saints of the Southwest
Saints of the Southwest provides an intimate look at thirty of the most revered saints of the Southwest, photographed in both the holiest and most humble of places: an archbishop's private chapel, a roadside shrine, a church of miracles, the wall of a video store. Author Jim Griffith, long-time chronicler of the West's unique cultural and spiritual heritage, is recognized as one of the foremost folklorists in the United States. He offers a brief biography of each saint and describes why each is particularly significant to the faithful of this diverse region. Learn why distraught mothers stop to pray at a shrine to Santa Rita along southern Arizona's Santa Cruz River, and why stroke victims and arthritis sufferers make pilgrimages to the Holy Child of Atocha at Chimayo in northern New Mexico. Saints of the Southwest will touch the hearts of all seekers who find personal inspiration and affirmation in the greater Southwest. Photographs by Griffith and others accompany illustrations from devotional memorabilia and indigenous religious folk art.
Hecho a Mano: The Traditional Arts of Tucson's Mexican American Community
Arts as intimate as a piece of needlework or a home altar. Arts as visible as decorative iron, murals, and low riders. Through such arts, members of Tucson's Mexican American community contribute much of the cultural flavor that defines the city to its residents and to the outside world. Now Tucson folklorist Jim Griffith celebrates these public and private artistic expressions and invites us to meet the people who create them.
Southern Arizona Folk Arts
Enhanced by numerous photographs, Southern Arizona Folk Arts shows how people from many cultures have made the desert a place of celebration. In helping to define a way of life, it serves as a practical handbook to Southwestern life-styles as encountered in southern Arizona, while offering the scholar's perspective on their diverse sources and contributions.[copy/paste from Google Books]
The Faces of Christ in Sonora: Los Rostros del Senor En Sonora
Renowned folklorist James S. Griffith teams up with Mexican scholar Francisco Javier Manzo Taylor to celebrate the compelling images of Christ found in churches, chapels, roadside shrines, and personal altars throughout the border state of Sonora, Mexico. Told in warm, informal stories and pictures, The Faces of Christ in Sonora captures the essence of these works of powerful popular art. It also examines their place in history, explains how individual pieces came to be made, and reveals how devotional art expresses the inspiration, belief, perseverance and survival of a culture. ""This is more than art,"" says Manzo Taylor. ""It's more than religion. It's people."
