Synopses & Reviews
Inside Dazzling Mountains provides fresh new translations of Native oral literatures of the Southwest, a region of vital and varied cultures and languages. The collection features songs, stories, chants, and orations from the four major language groups of the Southwest:and#160;Yuman, Nadand#237;ne (Apachean), Uto-Aztecan, and Kiowa-Tanoan. It combines translations of recordings made in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries with a rich array of newly recorded and produced materials, attesting to the continued vitality and creativity of contemporary Native languages in the Southwest.
For southwestern linguistic and cultural traditions to be more widely recognized and appreciated, retranslations of older works have been sorely needed. Original translations were often flawed and culturally biased and made use of literary conventions that were familiar to Anglo-Americans but foreign to the Native tribes themselves. Inside Dazzling Mountains corrects these flaws and celebrates the diversity of Native languages spoken in the Southwest today.
Skillfully edited and translated by David L. Kozak, who offers a wealth of editorial tools for interpreting songs, song sets, myths, stories, and chants of the Southwest, past and present, this volume contributes to the continued vitality and cultural complexity of the region.
Review
andquot;[Inside Dazzling Mountains] demonstrates more culturally sensitive and subtle ways of approaching Native tales than have been the norm.andquot;andmdash;M. F. McClure, CHOICE
Review
andquot;In this beautifully presented anthology of songs, poems, and short narratives from the American Southwest, even the uninitiated reader gains a deep appreciation for the rich diversity of oral literature that ha long circulated in this region.andquot;andmdash;Sean Oand#39;Neill, American Anthropologist
Synopsis
PREVIOUSLY ANNOUNCED--The story of the Native peoples of the Great Plains--including the Arapaho, Cheyenne, Lakota, Shoshone, Blackfeet, Kiowa, Pawnee, Arikara, Gros Ventre, Assiniboine, Mandan, Hidatsa, and Crow tribes-- is illustrated in over 250 full-color images, from traditional feather bonnets to war shirts, bear claw necklaces, pipe tomahawks, beadwork, and quillwork, as well as archival photographs of historical events and individuals, and photographs of contemporary Native life. Emma I. Hansen, a member of the Pawnee Nation, is curator of the Plains Indian Museum at the Buffalo Bill Historical Center in Cody, Wyoming.
Synopsis
The story of the Native peoples of the Great Plains--including the Arapaho, Cheyenne, Lakota, Shoshone, Blackfeet, Kiowa, Pawnee, Arikara, Gros Ventre, Assiniboine, Mandan, Hidatsa, and Crow tribes-- is integral to the history and heritage of the American West. These buffalo-hunting and horticultural people once dominated the vast open region of the Great Plains, west of the Mississippi River and east of the Rocky Mountains, that stretches from present-day Canada to Texas.
The Native people of the Plains found this vast, harsh land rich in resources, with tall grass prairies abundant with herds of buffalo and other grazing animals and fertile river valleys that supported farming. Economic practices were intertwined with spiritual ceremonial activities and core beliefs about the people's relationships to the land, sky, and universe. The magnificent arts of Plains Indian people also had such spiritual underpinnings, which, together with their historical and cultural contexts, can provide greater insight into and appreciation of their tribal significances. Lavishly illustrated with more than 300 images of objects from traditional feather bonnets to war shirts, bear claw necklaces, pipe tomahawks, beadwork, and quillwork, as well as archival photographs of historical events and individuals and photographs of contemporary Native life, Memory and Vision is a comprehensive examination of the environments and historic forces that forged these cultures, and a celebration of their ongoing presence in our national society.
About the Author
David L. Kozak is a professor of anthropology at Fort Lewis College. He is the author of Devil Sickness and Devil Songs: Tohono Oand#8217;odham Poetics.