"So wise were our elders"
Subtitle: mythic narratives of the Kamsá
By: John Holmes McDowell.
Publisher: University Press of Kentucky
Published: 1994
Place of publication: Lexington, Ky
Language: eng; sai
Number of pages: 285
Subjects: Camsa mythology.; Camsa language -- Texts.; Camsa language -- Grammar.
Description: "So wise were our elders!" Thus exclaims Mariano Chicunque, himself an elder, expressing in a single phrase the thrust of the mythic narrative tradition he simultaneously presents and represents in his storytelling.

A remarkable body of mythology is documented for the first time in this volume. John Holmes McDowell's study revolves around thirty-two mythic narratives of the Kamsa Indians who live in the Sibundoy Valley of the Colombian Andes, collected by the author from several renowned Kamsa story-tellers. Each myth is given in the native language with parallel English translations that seek to capture the flavor of the original performances.

Textual annotation and commentary assess the grounding of the myths in the language and culture of the Kamsa indigenous community.

Introductory chapters describe the process of transcription and translation and highlight important characteristics of the collection. McDowell stresses the collaborative nature of the enterprise, which benefits from the shared vision of the ethnographer and of indigenous consultants who were involved in every step of the process. The narratives are portrayed as a residual mythology in transit toward folktale but still evocative of a traditional cosmos.

The myths are much more than inert "literary" objects, and under McDowell's scrupulous analysis they emerge as a storehouse of narrative potential whose performances still have meaning in Kamsa' society and culture today.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. [273]-277) and index.
Narratives in Camsa with parallel English translations; introductory and critical matter in English.