This Is What They Say

by Mandeville, Francois; Scollon, Ron; Bringhurst, Robert

• ISBN13: 9780295989334
• ISBN10: 0295989335
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2009-06-30
• Publisher: Univ of Washington Pr

Summary

"An invaluable book on how to be and not to be, on work and dedication, on the inner life of scholarship, and on life and death in the Old Ways."--Gary Snyder. This astonishing Chipewyan story cycle from one of the unsung heoroes of Native American literature reveals a rich and nuanced picture of traditional life and thought in the northern Athapaskan world.

Author Biography

Franccidle;ois Mandeville was a master storyteller, born at Fort Resolution in the Northwest Territories in 1878. Fifty years later, at Fort Chipewyan, Alberta, he dictated a book of stories to a young and very talented Chinese linguist, Li Fang-kuei, who wrote them down in the Chipewyan language. Ron Scollon, who first translated these stories in the 1970s after studying with Li, returns to them here after a lifetime of joyful work and serious play among the mysteries of human language.

Table of Contents

Foreword	p. 1
Translator's Preface	p. 13
The Stories
How Copper Was Discovered	p. 19
How Iron Was Discovered	p. 32
Raven Head	p. 37
His Grandmother Raised Him	p. 72
Scabby	p. 75
Old Axe - Story One	p. 93
Old Axe - Story Two	p. 106
The Cannibal	p. 117
The Man Who Hibernated with a Bear	p. 125
The Adventures of Beaulieu	p. 133
The Man Who Became a Wolf	p. 157
The Cheating Gambler	p. 174
The Flight of the Last Dogribs	p. 177
The Shaman of the Yellowknives	p. 179
The Wise Man - Story One	p. 185
The Wise Man - Story Two	p. 191
Elicited Accounts
Education	p. 199
About Fish	p. 205
How I Made a Canoe	p. 209
How I Tanned a Moose Hide	p. 212
How I Hunted Beaver	p. 215
Commentary
The Narrative Ethnography of Fran&ccidle;ois Mandeville	p. 227
Appendix: Four States of an Oral Text	p. 265
Bibliography	p. 285
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