When Dream Bear Sings

Although the canon of nineteenth-century Native American writers represents rich literary expression, it derives generally from a New England perspective. Equally rich and rare poetry, songs, and storytelling were produced farther west by Indians residing on the Southern Plains. When Dream Bear Sings is a multidisciplinary, diversified, multicultural anthology that includes English translations accompanied by analytic and interpretive text outlines by leading scholars of eight major language groups of the Southern Plains: Iroquoian, Uto-Aztecan, Caddoan, Siouan, Algonquian, Kiowa-Tanoan, Athabaskan, and Tonkawa. These indigenous language families represent Indian nations and tribal groups across the Southern Plains of the United States, many of whom were exiled from their homelands east of the Mississippi River to settlements in Kansas and Oklahoma by the Indian Removal Act of the 1830s. Although indigenous culture groups on the Southern Plains are complex and diverse, their character traits are easily identifiable in the stories of their oral traditions, and some of the most creative and unique expressions of the human experience in the Americas appear in this book. Gus Palmer Jr. brings together a volume that not only updates old narratives but also enhances knowledge of indigenous culture through a modern generation’s familiarity with new, evolving theories and methodologies regarding verbal art performance.

This sweeping study of mysticism by Jess Hollenback considers the writings and experiences of a broad range of traditional religious mystics, including Teresa of Avila, Black Elk, and Gopi Krishna. It also makes use of a new category of sources that more traditional scholars have almost entirely ignored, namely, the autobiographies and writings of contemporary clairvoyants, mediums, and out-of-body travelers. This study contributes to the current debate about the contextuality of mysticism by presenting evidence that not only are the mystic's interpretations of and responses to experiences culturally and historically conditioned, but historical context and cultural environment decisively shape both the perceptual and affective content of the mystic's experience as well. Hollenback also explores the linkage between the mystic's practice of recollection and the onset of other unusual or supernormal manifestations such as photisms, the ability to see auras, telepathic sensitivity, clairvoyance, and out-of-body experiences. He demonstrates that these extraordinary phenomena can actually deepen our understanding of mysticism in unexpected ways. A unique feature of this book is its in-depth analysis of "empowerment," an important phenomenon ignored by most scholars of mysticism. Empowerment is a peculiar enhancement of the imagination, thoughts, and desires that frequently accompanies mystical states of consciousness. Hollenback shows its cross-cultural persistence, its role in constructing the perceptual and existential environments within which the mystic dwells, and its linkage to the fundamental contextuality of mystical experience.

Xurt'an (the end of the world) showcases the rich storytelling traditions of the northern Lacandones of Naha' through a collection of traditional narratives, songs, and ritual speech. Formerly isolated in the dense, tropical rainforest of Chiapas, Mexico, the Lacandon Maya constitute one of the smallest language groups in the world. Although their language remains active and alive, their traditional culture was abandoned after the death of their religious and civic leader in 1996. Lacking the traditional contexts in which the culture was transmitted, the oral traditions are quickly being forgotten. This collection includes creation myths that describe the cycle of destruction and renewal of the world, the structure of the universe, the realms of the gods and their intercessions in the affairs of their mortals, and the journey of the souls after death. Other traditional stories are non-mythic and fictive accounts involving talking animals, supernatural beings, and malevolent beings that stalk and devour hapless victims. In addition to traditional narratives, Xurt'an presents many songs that are claimed to have been received from the Lord of Maize, magical charms that invoke the forces of the natural world, invocations to the gods to heal and protect, and work songs of Lacandon women, whose contribution to Lacandon culture has been hitherto overlooked by scholars. Women's songs offer a rare glimpse into the other half of Lacandon society and the arduous distaff work that sustained the religion. The compilation concludes with descriptions of rainbows, the Milky Way as "the white road of Our Lord," and an account of the solstices. Transcribed and translated by a foremost linguist of the northern Lacandon language, the literary traditions of the Lacandones are finally accessible to English readers. The result is a masterful and authoritative collection of oral literature that will both entertain and provoke, while vividly testifying to the power of Lacandon Maya aesthetic expression.

This handbook provides broad coverage of the languages indigenous to North America, with special focus on typologically interesting features and areal characteristics, surveys of current work, and topics of particular importance to communities. The volume is divided into two major parts: subfields of linguistics and family sketches. The subfields include those that are customarily addressed in discussions of North American languages (sounds and sound structure, words, sentences), as well as many that have received somewhat less attention until recently (tone, prosody, sociolinguistic variation, directives, information structure, discourse, meaning, language over space and time, conversation structure, evidentiality, pragmatics, verbal art, first and second language acquisition, archives, evolving notions of fieldwork). Family sketches cover major language families and isolates and highlight topics of special value to communities engaged in work on language maintenance, documentation, and revitalization.

The Lenape tribe, also known as the Delaware Nation, lived for centuries on the land that English colonists later called New Jersey. But once America gained its independence, they were forced to move further west: to Indiana, then Missouri, and finally to the territory that became Oklahoma. These reluctant migrants were not able to carry much from their ancestral homeland, but they managed to preserve the stories that had been passed down for generations. On the Turtle’s Back is the first collection of Lenape folklore, originally compiled by anthropologist M. R. Harrington over a century ago but never published until now. In it, the Delaware share their cherished tales about the world’s creation, epic heroes, and ordinary human foibles. It features stories told to Harrington by two Lenape couples, Julius and Minnie Fouts and Charles and Susan Elkhair, who sought to officially record their legends before their language and cultural traditions died out. More recent interviews with Lenape elders are also included, as their reflections on hearing these stories as children speak to the status of the tribe and its culture today. Together, they welcome you into their rich and wondrous imaginative world.

As Long as the Earth Endures is an annotated collection of almost all of the known Native texts in Miami-Illinois, an Algonquian language of Indiana, Illinois, and Oklahoma. These texts, gathered from native speakers of Myaamia, Peoria, and Wea in the 1890s and the early twentieth century, span several genres, such as culture hero stories, trickster tales, animal stories, personal and historical narratives, how-to stories, and translations of Christian materials. These texts were collected from seven speakers: Frank Beaver, George Finley, Gabriel Godfroy, William Peconga, Thomas Richardville, Elizabeth Valley, and Sarah Wadsworth. Representing thirty years of study, almost all of the stories are published here for the first time. The texts are presented with their original transcriptions along with full, corrected modern transcriptions, translations, and grammatical analyses. Included with the texts are extensive annotation on all aspects of their meaning, pronunciation, and interpretation; a lengthy glossary explaining and analyzing in detail every word; and an introduction placing the texts in their philological, historical, linguistic, and folkloric context, with a discussion of how the stories compare to similar texts from neighboring Great Lakes Algonquian tribes.

"Frances Densmore's modestly titled Teton Sioux Music and Culture is one of the many volumes that resulted from her prolific life-long project to record and transcribe the traditional music of American Indian peoples. The book explores the role of music in all aspects of Sioux life, and is a classic of the descriptive genre produced by members of the Smithsonian's Bureau of American Ethnology. Music serves as the vehicle for organizing this detailed account of traditional religion, warfare, and social life, enriched by first-person narrations by the Lakota men and women who worked with Densmore from 1911 to 1914 to preserve their songs by means of a wax cylinder recorder, the modern technology of that period. The evident quality of the narratives (translations from Lakota) as well as the complete transcription and translation of all the Lakota lyrics to the songs, resulted from Densmore's close collaboraton with Robert P. Higheagle, who shared her dedication to the project and was an exceptionally capable translator and cultural mediator. The material recorded here on such topics as dreams and visions, healing, the Sun Dance, and buffalo hunting -- all with appropriate musical transcriptions and song lyrics -- makes Teton Sioux Music and Culture one of the most significant ethnographic works ever published on the Sioux, as well as an important landmark in the study of ethnomusicology." -- Raymond J. DeMallie, author of The Sixth Grandfather: Black Elk's Teachings Given to John G. Neihardt (1984), also available in a Bison Books edition. Book jacket.