Coming To Light

by SWANN, BRIAN

• ISBN13: 9780679743583
• ISBN10: 0679743588
• Format: Trade Paper
• Copyright: 1996-02-13
• Publisher: Vintage

Summary

From Inuit and Aleut to Iroquois, Lakota, and Navajo, this magnificent anthology acquaints readers with the untrammeled breadth and power of the spoken literatures of North America's native peoples. It is the first collection to present its selections in their full cultural context, for each of its stories, songs, prayers, and orations is accompanied by extensive translators' notes that tell us how it was told or sung and what it meant to its narrator.

Author Biography

Brian Swann has published a number of collections of poetry and fiction, including Wearing the Morning Star: Native American Song-Poems and Coming to Light: Contemporary Translations of the Native Literatures of North America. He teaches at the Cooper Union in New York City. Swann received his BA and MA from Queens' College at the University of Cambridge, and a PhD from Princeton University.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	p. vii
Introduction	p. xiii
Alaska, Yukon, and the Subarctic	p. 1
Two Stories from Tikigaq [Inupiaq]	p. 3
Mary Kokrak: Five Brothers and Their Younger Sister [Yupik]	p. 15
Two Tellings of the Story of Uterneq: "The Woman Who Returned from the Dead" [Yupik]	p. 37
The Boy Who Went to Live with the Seals [Yupik]	p. 57
"The Moon's Sister" and "Song of the Atkan Aleuts" [Aleut]	p. 75
The One Who Kicked His Grandmother's Head Along [Koyukon]	p. 82
"Raven" and "Fog Woman" [Dena'ina]	p. 92
Six Selections from Peter Kalifornsky's A Dena'ina Legacy [Dena'ina]	p. 110
The Girl Who Married the Bear [Tagish/Tlingit]	p. 124
How the World Began [Tagish/Tlingit]	p. 138
"Glacier Bay History" told by Amy Marvin and "Speech for the Removal of Grief" delivered by Jessie Dalton [Tlingit]	p. 151
Dunne-za Stories [Dunne-za]	p. 176
Mistacayawasis, Big Belly Child [Rock Cree]	p. 190
Wolverine: An Innu Trickster [Innu]	p. 208
The North Pacific Coast	p. 223
John Sky's "One They Gave Away" [Haida]	p. 225
Night Hunter and Day Hunter [Kwakiutl]	p. 250
The Sun's Myth [Kathlamet Chinook]	p. 273
Coyote, Master of Death, True to Life [Kalapuya]	p. 286
Seal and Her Younger Brother Lived There [Clackamas Chinook]	p. 307
Great Basin and Plateau	p. 311
Hilda Austin's Telling of "[characters not reproducible]: A Traditional Nlekepmx Legend" [Thompson River Salish]	p. 313
Blue Jay and His Brother-in-Law Wolf [Colville]	p. 332
Fish Hawk's Raid Against the Sioux [Cayuse/Nez Perce]	p. 346
Poetry Songs of the Shoshone Ghost Dance [Wind River Shoshone]	p. 357
The Plains	p. 375
Three Skiri Pawnee Stories [Skiri Pawnee]	p. 377
Two Roads to Leadership: Grandmother's Boy and Last-Born Brother [Lakota]	p. 403
Wilderness Mentors [Lakota]	p. 423
Wakinyan and Wakinyan Wicaktepi [Lakota]	p. 432
The Eastern Woodlands	p. 441
Nanabush Stories from the Ojibwe [Ojibwe]	p. 443
Two Tuscarora Legends [Tuscarora]	p. 464
The Iroquoian Thanksgiving Address [Cayuga]	p. 476
Tales of the Delaware Trickster [Delaware]	p. 489
The Indian Devil, Mischief-Maker [Passamaquoddy]	p. 503
The Southwest and Southeast	p. 519
Running the Deer [Yaqui]	p. 521
Pima Oriole Songs [Pima]	p. 541
Ethnopoetic Retranslation of a Zuni Ritual Song Sequence [Zuni]	p. 564
Because He Made Marks on Paper, the Soldiers Came [Zuni]	p. 580
Coyote, Skunk, and the Priaire Dogs [Navajo]	p. 590
Ma'ii Jooldloshi Hane': Stories About Coyote, the One Who Trots [Navajo]	p. 601
Singing up the Mountain [Navajo]	p. 614
Enemy Slayer's Horse Song [Navajo]	p. 624
Joseph Hoffman's "The Birth of He Triumphs Over Evils": A Western Apache Origin Story [Western Apache]	p. 636
The Boy Who Went in Search of His Father [Hopi]	p. 657
Two Hopi Songpoems [Hopi]	p. 679
The Farewell Song [Havasupai]	p. 690
Two Koasati Traditional Narratives [Koasati]	p. 704
California	p. 715
Two Stories from the Yana [Northern and Central Yana]	p. 717
Silver-Gray Fox Creates Another World [Atsugewi]	p. 737
Two Maidu Myths [Maidu]	p. 749
Myth, Music, and Magic: Nettie Reuben's Karuk Love Medicine [Karuk]	p. 764
Suggested Reading	p. 773
Contributors	p. 785
Index	p. 793
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