This magnificent collection gathers 160 tales from 80 tribal groups to offer a rich panorama of the Native American mythic heritage. From all across the continent come tales of creation and love, of heroes and war, of animals, tricksters, and the end of the world. Alfonso Oritiz, an eminent anthropologist, and Richard Erdoes, an artist and master storyteller, have added a broad selection of contemporary Indian voices to the best folkloric sources of the nineteenth century to make this the most wide-ranging and authentic volume of American Indian myths available anywhere. 'This fine, valuable new gathering of Turtle Island tales is truly alive, mysterious, and wonderful-overflowing, that is, with wonder, mystery, and life. ' Peter Matthiessen

Text: English, French (translation)

"In olden days, in a village peopled by animal creatures, lived Wild Cat (another name for Lynx). He was old and mangy, and he was constantly scratching himself with his cane. From time to time, a young girl who lived in the same cabin would grab the cane, also to scratch herself. In vain Wild Cat kept trying to talk her out of it. One day the young lady found herself pregnant; she gave birth to a boy. Coyote, another inhabitant of the village, became indignant. He talked all of the population into going to live elsewhere and abandoning the old Wild Cat, his wife, and their child to their fate . . . " So begins the Nez Percé myth that lies at the heart of The Story of Lynx , Claude Lévi-Strauss's most accessible examination of the rich mythology of American Indians. In this wide-ranging work, the master of structural anthropology considers the many variations in a story that occurs in both North and South America, but especially among the Salish-speaking peoples of the Northwest Coast. He also shows how centuries of contact with Europeans have altered the tales. Lévi-Strauss focuses on the opposition between Wild Cat and Coyote to explore the meaning and uses of gemellarity , or twinness, in Native American culture. The concept of dual organization that these tales exemplify is one of non-equivalence: everything has an opposite or other, with which it coexists in unstable tension. In contrast, Lévi-Strauss argues, European notions of twinness—as in the myth of Castor and Pollux—stress the essential sameness of the twins. This fundamental cultural difference lay behind the fatal clash of European and Native American peoples. The Story of Lynx addresses and clarifies all the major issues that have occupied Lévi-Strauss for decades, and is the only one of his books in which he explicitly connects history and structuralism. The result is a work that will appeal to those interested in American Indian mythology.

35th anniversary edition! Here, in their own words, Indigenous voices reclaim the narrative of California Indians. "Their stories, here brilliantly illuminated by Margolin's comments, contain beauty, humor, and wisdom."-- Harold Gilliam, San Francisco Chronicle Before contact, California's Native people comprised five hundred independent tribal groups whose cultural and linguistic multiplicity expressed a sense of incalculable human richness. Reflecting that diversity, this collection of personal histories, songs, chants, and stories draws together a range of experiences from throughout the state and across generations to reveal the continuous Native presence in what is now called the Golden State. Speakers share traditional knowledge such as rites of passage, coyote tales, and dream journeys, and in equal measure they address the devastation that arrived with white people and the challenges that exist to this day--as well as the remarkable revitalization of their cultures over the past thirty years in particular. Variously funny, painful, insightful, and strikingly beautiful, The Way We Lived presents California's original sense of itself. This updated reissue contains a new foreword by Michael Connolly Miskwish (Campo Kumeyaay Nation) and a new introduction from the editor, Malcolm Margolin.

"It is said that Coyote was sitting atop Sonoma Mountain when he decided to create the world and people, and many of the songs that Coast Miwok and Southern Pomo people have sung since the beginning of time are gifts from the mountain. The stories go on and on because the mountain itself has so many things--rocks and animals; birds and grasses, fish, frogs, springs and creek, trees--and many of the stories connect with other stories, just as the animals and plants and all other things on Sonoma Mountain connect with one another. In this book of stories from the award-winning author of Grand Avenue, Greg Sarris retells sixteen creation stories from his ancestral homeland."--Provided by publisher.