The ten essays in this volume present case studies of different cultural groups in northwestern Mexico, analyzed through the concepts of enclaves and regions of refugee initially proposed by Edward Spicer and Gonzalo Aguirre Beltran.

N. Ross Crumrine, one of the few outsiders able to communicate in the Mayo language, spent several years in resident field research among the Mayo of southern Sonora. His major focus has been on the relationship between rapid economic and technological change and cultural stability and dynamics. He has conducted comparative field research in the Catacaos area of Piura, the northwest coast region of Peru, which provides a broad basis for the analysis and understanding of the northwestern Mexican data. Crumrine received a doctoral degree from the University of Arizona in 1968 and is a Professor of Anthropology at the University of Victoria in Canada. Among his numerous publications are The Mayo Indians of Sonora: A People Who Refuse to Die and The Power of Symbols: Masks and Masquerade in the Americas, edited with Marjorie Halpin.
 
Phil C. Weigand has specialized in the archaeology and ethnography of western and northwestern Mexico. His primary interests are in economic and social organization in an archaeological and historical perspective, and he has done fieldwork throughout the American Southwest and Mexico. He holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in History from Indiana University and a doctoral degree in Anthropology from Southern Illinois University. Dr. Weigand is a member of the faculty at the State University of New York, Stony Brook and is Chairman of that Department of Anthropology. Recent publications include Mining and Mining Techniques in Ancient Mesoamerica, edited with Gretchen Gwynne, and The Archaeology of Western and Northwestern Mesoamerica, edited with Michael Foster.