| This page reflects Margot Early's fascination with nomadic cultures. Though far from a nomad herself, she travels incessantly in her mind, often joining these peoples, whose lives are so close to the land and who move with the rhythm of the seasons and the animals they herd. She includes cowboys in this list because, although she lives in the heart of cowboy country, she acknowledges that cattle drives from the Mexican border to Montana are a thing of the past. Her grandfather was a newspaperman born in Montana, and she loves big open spaces and wilderness. Most of the amazing groups on this page have already been forced to settle by the governments of their countries (border, what's a border?)--for reasons from overgrazing to bureaucratic convenience. But as these cultures lose their traditional ways of life, others lose something precious as well. With the loss of people who herd cows across the grasslands, reindeer across the tundra, or camels across the desert, comes the loss of romance.
Books are nearly always better historical references than the Internet. Here are some reference works Margot has used:
Greasepaint Matadors by Jeanne Joy Hartnagel-Taylor
The Cowboy Life by Michelle Morris
It's Your Misfortune and None of My Own: A New History of the American West
by Richard White
Gold Buckle by Jeff Coplon
West of the Divide by Jim Carrier
A Field Guide to Cows by John Pukite
Healers of the Andes: Kallawaya Herbalists and Their Medicinal Plants by
Joseph W. Bastien
The hero of Margot Early's June 1996 Superromance, Waiting for You,
was a Kallawaya herbalist raised in Colorado and Bolivia.
Herds of the Tundra: A Portrait of Saami Reindeer Pastoralism by Robert Paine
A Year in Lapland: Guest of the Reindeer Herders by Hugh Beach
The Poetics and Politics of Tuareg Aging by Susan Rasmussen
Spirit Possession and Personhood Among the Kel Ewey Tuareg by Susan Rasmussen
Black Tents of Arabia by Carl R. Raswan
Writing Women's Worlds: Bedouin stories by Lila Abu-Lughod
Veiled Sentiments: Honor and Poetry in a Bedouin Society
by Lila Abu-Lughod
Ethnic Dress by Frances Kennett
We wish to inform you that tomorrow we will be killed with our families:
stories from Rwanda by Philip Gourevitch.
Margot read Mr. Gourevitch's book three times while working on Talking
About My Baby. The hero, Dr. Isaac McCrea, lived in Rwanda
for fourteen years and was married to a woman doctor with Tutsi and Hutu
family background. She died in childbirth. The heroine of this book is a
midwife.
Wager with the Wind by James Grenier.
The hero of Margot's December '99 Superromance, There Is A Season,
is a bush pilot.
Heroes of the Horizon by Gerry Bruder.
FICTION:
Under the Snow by Kerstin Ekman
Segu by Maryse Condé
Windward Heights by Maryse Condé
On the Web
Imacaghen, Tuaregs, Twaregs, Touaregs, Imajighen
The heroine of Margot's June 2000 release, Forever and a Baby, is descended
from a Tuareg woman. This is the fourth book in her series The Midwives.
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