In the Fall of 1900, a young American anthropologist named John Swanton arrived in the Haida country, on the Northwest Coast of North America, intending to learn everything he could about Haida mythology. He spent the next ten months phonetically transcribing several thousand pages of myths, stories, histories and songs in the Haida language. Swanton met a number of fine mythtellers during his year in the Haida country. Each had his own style and his own repertoire. Two of them -- a blind man in his fifties by the name of Ghandl, and a crippled septuagenarian named Skaay -- were artists of extraordinary stature, revered in their own communities and admired ever since by the few specialists aware of their great legacy.
Nine Visits to the Mythworld includes all the finest works of one of these master mythtellers. In November 1900, when Ghandl dictated these nine stories, the Haida world lay in ruins. Wave upon wave of smallpox and other diseases, rapacious commercial exploitation by fur traders, whalers and miners, and relentless missionization by the church had taken a huge toll on Haida culture. Yet in the blind poetÌs mind, the great tradition lived, and in his voice it comes alive. Robert BringhurstÌs eloquent and vivid translations of these works are supplemented by explanatory notes that supply the needed background information, and by photographs of masterworks of Haida visual art, in which the stories Ghandl tells are given potent visual form.
Authors
- Bibliography, etc. Note
- Includes bibliographical references
- Control Number Identifier
- CaOOCEL
- Dewey Decimal Classification Number
- C897/.2
- Dewey Decimal Edition Number
- 21
- General Note
- This edition incorporates corrections to pp. 71, 103, 136, 167, 182, 197, 215."--T.p. verso Issued as part of the desLibris books collection
- Geographic Area Code
- n-cn-bc
- ISBN
- 1550549707 9781926706672
- LCCN
- E99.H2
- LCCN Item number
- G52 2000eb
- Modifying agency
- CaBNVSL
- Original cataloging agency
- CaBVAU
- Physical Description | Extent
- 1 electronic text (222 p.)
- Publisher or Distributor Number
- CaOOCEL
- Rights
- Access restricted to authorized users and institutions
- System Control Number
- (CaBNVSL)thg00604359 (OCoLC)456139367 (CaOOCEL)417024
- System Details Note
- Mode of access: World Wide Web
- Transcribing agency
- CaOONL
Table of Contents
- Contents 10
- Translator's Acknowledgements 11
- Introduction: The Blind Poet of Sunshine and Sealion Town 14
- 1 The Way the Weather Chose to Be Born 38
- 2 Spirit Being Living in the Little Finger 50
- 3 In His Father's Village, Someone Was Just About to Go Out Hunting Birds 82
- 4 The Sealion Hunter 96
- 5 The Myth of the One Who Got Rid of Nine of His Nephews 112
- 6 Those Who Stay a Long Way Out to Sea 126
- 7 Hlagwajiina and His Family 136
- 8 The Names of Their Gambling Sticks 170
- 9 A Red Feather 180
- Appendix: Haida Spelling and Pronunciation 194
- Notes to the Text 196
- Notes to the Illustrations 214
- Select Bibliography 218