From: sbrock@teal.csn.org (Steve Brock)
Subject: Two Books of Native American Folktales
Organization: Colorado SuperNet, Inc.
Date: Tue, 13 Oct 1992 22:54:58 GMT

                       AFTER THE SUN SETS

Here are reviews of two books on Native American folklore from the
University of Nebraska Press, 901 N. 17th St., Lincoln, NE 68588-
0520.  The University of Nebraska Press online catalog is available
on the Internet by telneting to CRCVMS.UNL.EDU, username INFO,
choosing UNIVERSITY PRESS, and ONLINE CATALOG.  

WIGWAM EVENINGS: SIOUX FOLK TALES RETOLD by Charles A. Eastman
(Ohiyesa) and Elaine Goodale Eastman.  Illustrated.  253 pp., $7.95
paper.  0-8032-6717-7

CALIFORNIAN INDIAN NIGHTS, compiled by Edward W. Gifford and
Gwendoline Harris Block.  Illustrated, index, map.  323 pp., $9.95
paper.  0-8032-7031-3


                             REVIEW

     Both of these books are welcome reprints of long out-of-print
editions.  "Wigwam Evenings" was originally published in 1909, and
"Californian Indian Nights" in 1930.  Both have new introductions
(by Micheal Dorris and Louise Erdrich, and Albert L. Hurtado,
respectively) and the University Of Nebraska Press has retained the
original typestyles and illustrations, emphasizing the idea that
these folktales are extremely old and have been passed down for
ages.

     In "Wigwam," Dorris and Erdrich speak of the need for
folktales to be "sufficiently entertaining to allow frequent
retellings without boredom, and ...memorable enough to be passed on
almost verbatim."  The Eastmans gathered twenty-seven tales, told
by Smoky Day in nightly installments.
     The narratives were selected to be a cross-section of Sioux
values and beliefs: origin myths, cosmology, politics, and social
custom, told in a manner easy for children to understand.  Each
story begins with a short introduction and ends with a moral, such
as, "Do not harm your weaker brothers, for even a little Squirrel
may be the bearer of good fortune!"
     The last story (The Ghost Wife) surpasses the others.  In the
introduction, Smoky Day speaks to the children of death.  "When the
spirit departs," he says, "that too is a mystery, and therefore we
do not speak aloud the name of the dead.  There are wonders all
about us, and within, but if we are quiet and obedient to the voice
of the spirit, sometime we may understand these mysteries!"  
     He tells the story of the ghost woman, the daughter of a
chief, who comes to a boy when he roves the forest.  He falls in
love with the vision, and asks her if she may come to live with him
in his village.  She says "yes, if you never speak roughly to me or
any child in my presence."  He promises, and they live happily
together, until one day he returns tired and frustrated from a hunt
and speaks harshly to his wife and child.  They disappear forever.

     "Californian Indian Nights," has a much more academic
presentation, edited, however, for a mass audience.  Gifford was an
anthropologist at the University of California at Berkeley and
Harris was an administrative aide and editor at the University's
Museum of Anthropology.  
     They assembled, again, a representative collection of eighty-
two folktales, grouped according to subject matter, such as the
Origin of Man or the Destiny of the Soul.  Since there are so many
different tribes in California (in an intricate map, they are
broken up into tribes, groups, dialects, and families as they were
in 1770), several of the stories are repeated.  For example, there
are six that relate the "Beginning of the World." 
     A lengthy introduction details the groupings of the tribes,
outlines their early history, and discusses the arrangement of the
stories, followed by the stories themselves.
     Several stories explain why the universe is the way it is.  In
"The Stealing of the Sun," told by the Kato Indians of Mendocino
County, the sun originally lived in a house, tied down and covered
by a blanket.  Coyote carries the sun away when all in the house
are asleep, and cuts it up into a sun, moon, and stars, and tells
them where to appear.  Then, he brought them to the people.
     As in the previous book, these tales were told "at night in
the assembly houses and about the campfires" of the various tribes. 
They make great stories to be read aloud by campfires, fireplaces,
or bedsides in the 1990s.

Newsgroups: alt.books.reviews,alt.native