Jaime in Taos: The Taos Papers of Jaime de Angulo. - book reviews

Jaime made two trips to Taos, New Mexico, to study the language and religious philosophy of the Taos Pueblo people. These letters, compiled and annotated by his daughter Gui, are the sincere and vivid document of Jaime's experience. Taos in the twenties was a crossroads for anthropologists, psychologists, artists, and bohemians, as well as for the Indians who lived there. Jaime and his family spent time with Cairl Jung, D, H. Lawrence, and other noted passersthrough, The Taos papers are candid and strange, often funny, and tell a lot about cultural attitudes of the day.

* You can imagine my excitement. I made up my mind that I would kidnap him if necessary and take him to Taos. It was quite a fight because his time was so limited, but I finally carried it. And he was not sorry that he went. It was a revelation to him, the whole thing. Of course I had prepared Mountain Lake (Antonio Mirabal). He and Jung made contact immediately and had a long talk on religion. Jung said that I was perfectly right in all that I had intuited about their psychological condition. He said at evening "I had the extraordinary sensation that I was talking to an Egyptian priest of the fifteenth century before Christ." The trip was an immense success all around. Jung got a great deal out of it. I got a great deal out of Jung, both about philosophy and about my own work. I needed his confirmation of all the stuff I have been working out by my own lonely self and against all anthropological precedent.

Jaime in Taos (The Taos Papers of Jaime de Angulo) Gui de Angulo, Editor. 1985; 140 pp. ISBN 0-87286-165-1 $6.95 ($9.45 postpaid) from City Lights Books, 261 Columbus Avenue, San Francisco, CA 94133; 415/362-8193, fax 415/362-4921

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