American Indian Myths and Legends

Each chapter was divided into a different theme, so the book covers the Creation of People, the Creation of the World, Stories about Celestial Bodies, Monsters, War Heroes, Love, Tricksters, Animal People, Ghosts and the End of the World. Hence the book goes full circle in exploring major themes in North American belief. Each chapter includes the stories of numerous Nations from different regions, linguistic families or "cultural groupings", allowing the reader to see them in a much broader light. All of the stories are short, and they range in mood from hilarious (Intomes description of his nightmare in "Inktome Has a Bad Dream") to being deeply moving (the suns sacrifice in "The Scabby One Lights Up the Sky"). At the end of each story, the source is given and they come from quite a number of sources. Many are recorded in this book for the first time as far as I am aware, so it is certainly worth looking at even if you are very familar with Native American traditions.

To those familar with Native American culture, some things in this book should be familar, particularly the antics of Coyote, Inktome the spider, Raven and other tricksters, but also the tales of Glooskap, giants, floods, disembodied cannibal heads, the place of emergence, Hiawatha and so forth. One thing I should point out before going further is that some of these tales deal with adult themes (in the Inuit tale "Moon Rapes His Sister Sun" the moon commits the sins of rape and incest and forever chases his sister across the sky) and can be downright raunchy (as is the case with several of the Coyote and Inktome stories). There is nothing wrong with these stories, as they either are meant to teach a moral lesson (as is the case with the former) or because they are meant to amuse (in the case of the trickster stories). But it can come as something of a shock to those who are expecting "mere childrens stories". Still, if you or someone you know has an interest in Native American culture, this book is certainly worth getting.