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In Millions of Gifts for the Gods, Jonathan E. Reyman chronicles a remarkable thirty-four-year applied anthropology initiative that bridged ancient traditions with contemporary conservation challenges. From 1982 to 2015 the Feather Distribution Project addressed the critical need for macaw, parrot, and wild turkey feathers essential to Pueblo religious practices, directly supporting their constitutional right to freedom of religion.

Grounded in Sol Tax’s concept of “action anthropology,” the project facilitated community-driven decision-making rather than imposing external solutions. This collaborative approach enabled Indigenous communities to maintain cultural practices that have persisted for over a millennium, dating back to the Ancestral Pueblo people and the Mogollon and Sinagua tribes, who viewed birds as sacred beings that helped humans emerge from the underworld. Yet the project’s impact extended far beyond cultural preservation. Over three decades, it distributed approximately 14.5 million feathers, valued at $20 million, to the Southwest Pueblos and other Indigenous Americans at no cost to them. Through partnerships with turkey hunters, zoos, bird clubs, the National Wild Turkey Federation, and dozens of volunteers, the initiative reduced illegal bird smuggling from Latin America, alleviated pressure on threatened bird populations, and eliminated harmful plucking practices.

Millions of Gifts for the Gods is an extended case study in applied anthropology, demonstrating how sustained collaboration between anthropologists and Indigenous communities can effectively address complex cultural, legal, and environmental challenges while preserving sacred traditions. This unique project is of special interest to anthropologists working in the American Southwest, as well as students and scholars of archaeology, ethnography, and ethnohistory.
 

In his 1948 work A Study of Archeology, recently minted Harvard Ph.D. Walter W. Taylor delivered the strongest and most substantial critique of American archaeology ever published. He created many enemies with his dissection of the research programs of America's leading scholars, who took it as a personal affront. Taylor subsequently saw his ideas co-opted, his research pushed to the margins, and his students punished. Publicly humiliated at the 1985 Society for American Archaeology meeting, he suffered ridicule until his death in 1997.

Nearly everyone in the archaeological community read Taylor's book at the time, and despite the negative reaction, many were influenced by it. Few young scholars dared to directly engage and build on his "conjunctive approach," yet his suggested methods nevertheless began to be adopted and countless present-day authors highlight his impact on the 1960s formation of the "New Archaeology."

In Prophet, Pariah, and Pioneer, peers, colleagues, and former students offer a critical consideration of Taylor's influence and legacy. Neither a festschrift nor a mere analysis of his work, the book presents an array of voices exploring Taylor and his influence, sociologically and intellectually, as well as the culture of American archaeology in the second half of the twentieth century.