A Tepic and Nayarit Bibliography

• Herbert Corey. "Along The Old Spanish Road in Mexico: Life Among the People of Nayarit and Jalisco, Two of the Richest States of the Southern Republic". National Geographic, 43 (3), March, 1923, p. 225-281. With illustrations from photographs by Clifton Adams. Long and insightful article with many great photographs, several of them full-page. A color photograph section includes other parts of Mexico. This is the earliest Nayarit item I've been able to find.
  


• Harry Carr. Old Mother Mexico.With illustrations by Louis H. Ruyl. Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin Company; Cambridge: The Riverside Press, 1931. 270 pp. A Breezy, charming automobile blitz through Mexico with a Hollywood reporter. Chapter XIII is entitled "Old Tepic", of which he says "Of all the towns in Mexico, I like Tepic the best. It is very old. It sits there, sweet and complacent and contented, while the rest of the world tears around in such a hurry that it is like a chicken with its head cut off." Carr likes his cliches. He also tells the one about the peon on his way to market who refuses to sell his entire load for a great price, because then he would have no reason to continue on to market, his greatest pleasure. Is this the first appearance of this trope? There's a lovely illustration of the Tepic plaza, above. Amusingly, a previous borrower of this book from SPL has added every single missing accent mark including over the e in México in the title, on facing pages; there must be five hundred pencil slashes.
  


• Frances Toor. A Treasury of Mexican Folkways: The customs, myths, folklore, traditions, beliefs, fiestas, dances and songs of the Mexican people; illustrated with 10 color plates, 100 drawings by Carlos Merida, and 170 photographs. New York: Crown Publishers, 1947. 566 pp. The classic study of indigenous folkloric traditions, including many references to the Huichol and Cora people of Nayarit.
  


• Dana Lamb and Ginger Lamb. Quest for the Lost City: A true-life adventure.Santa Barbara, California: Santa Barbara Press, 1984 [1951]. 340 pp. Photographs. Enormously popular swashbuckling adventure story of the 1950s, from an intrepid couple who traveled mostly on foot down the west coast of Mexico to Chiapas and Guatemala in search of a "lost city" and gold tablets of the Maya. Their archaeology is suspect, and accusations of fakery have been made, but the portion of the story taking place in San Blas seems pretty straight-forward.
  


• Howard E. Gulick. Nayarit, Mexico: A Traveler's Guidebook to this historic and scenic state of Mexico's West Coast, and its capital, the city of Tepic. Maps—Illustrations—Index. Glendale, California: The Arthur H. Clark Company, 1965. 168 pp. The kind of quirky, individual guidebook that just isn't made anymore. Gulick covers just about every inch of drivable ground in the state, with meticulous mile markers. Mexico was opening up to automobile tourism, by Americans traveling down to Mexico City or one of the beach resorts, and Tepic was a handy overnighting spot by then, with a good highway through to Guadalajara. But he also gets up into the remoter towns. A substantial state history and overview of the flora and fauna is included. Tipped in at the back is a gorgeous hand-drawn map. I wish there was a 2009 edition of this!
  


• Kojin Toneyama. The Popular Arts of Mexico. With a foreword and notes on modern Mexican folk crafts by Carlos Espejel, Director, Museo Nacional de Artes e Industrias Populares, Mexico City. New York & Tokyo: Weatherhill/Heibonsha, 1974. Japanese text translated by Richard L. Gage. Significant section of Nayarit crafts, including the well-known yarn paintings, with many bright oversaturated photographs, including photos of the Nayarit countryside. An attractive book. The focus is on current (i.e., 1970s) market-stall crafts, in a combination of styles, not particularly "authentic" in terms of pre-Columbian traditions but often-overlooked modern interpretations of indigenous life and art.
  


• John M. Ball. A Return to Tepic, Nayarit, Mexico: A personal geography. Atlanta: Inman Park Publications, 1991. 42 pp. Monograph No. 1. The author, a geography professor, describes his parents' retirement in Tepic, in 1957, and his subsequent visits there in the 60s and 80s, with photographs.
  


• Richard F. Townsend, ed. Ancient West Mexico: Art and Archaeology of the Unknown Past. With essays by Patricia Rieff Anawalt, Christopher S. Beekman, Barbara Braun, Kristi Butterwick, Maria Teresa Cabrero, Jane Stevenson Day, Peter T. Furst, Mark Miller Graham, Lorenza López Mesta Camberos, Joseph B. Mountjoy, Robert B. Pickering, Jorge Ramos de la Vega, Otto Schöndube, Richard F. Townsend, Francisco Valdez, Phil C. Weigand, and Christopher L. Whitmore. New York: Thames and Hudson, 1998. For the Art Institute of Chicago. 308 pp. Profusely illustrated with drawings, maps, paintings, and color photographs. This is the big Kahuna, the standard survey of Western Mexican art and archaeology. You will find no more comprehensive look at what is known about the shaft-tomb people and their artifacts. The area covered includes Nayarit, Jalisco, and Colima. This is a beautiful (and expensive) book.
  


• Estado de Nayarit, México: Guía Turística. Aguascalientes, Aguascalientes: Instituto Nacional de Estadística, Geografía e Informática, 2001. 204 pp. Three tipped-in folding maps; one large separate folding map. Government-produced tourist guide to the entire state. Many color photographs. Nothing like this exists in English, alas. It's as complete a guide as you could ask for.
  


• Mauro Lugo Izaguirre. El Museo Regional de Nayarit. Tepic, Nayarit: Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia, 2001. 130 pp. In Spanish. Useful guide to the museum, which is located in downtown Tepic in an eighteenth-century house, which was used as a school until the museum opened in 1971. The book briefly covers the history of the region, with special attention to the archaeological discoveries of the West Mexican tomb-shaft peoples. Several photographs of important artifacts and displays are included.
  


• Bruce Whipperman. Moon Handbooks: Puerto Vallarta, Including Guadalajara and Lake Chalapa. Sixth Edition. Emeryville, California: Avalon Travel Publishing, 2005. Devotes eleven pages to Tepic, which is generous by modern English-language guidebook standards, and includes a good map of downtown. Whipperman is "not an adventurous eater", and seems to list mostly pizza restaurants no matter where he goes, but he's good on the culture, and driving instructions and so forth. There is also coverage of San Sebastian, with a map, which is rare.
  


• Nayarit: Planos de las Cds. de Tepic, Acaponeta, Ahuacatlán, Compostela, Ixtlán del Río, Tecuala, Santiago Ixcuintla, Tuxpan y Mapa General del Estado. México: Ediciones Independencia, [2007?]. Standard folding highway map of the state and major towns. Some inaccuracies have been found, but it's the best available.
  


• Michael D. Coe and Rex Koontz. Mexico: From the Olmecs to the Aztecs. Sixth edition, revised and expanded. With 181 illustrations, 20 in color. New York: Thames and Hudson, 2008 [1962, 1977, 1984, 1994, 2002]. Excellent survey of pre-Columbian cultures, including few pages on, and some good photographs of, the Western Mexico shaft-tomb art.