Synopses & Reviews
Chapter One The East The start of life's journey, the new day, is in the East. Just as it is the place on this continent where the European world first came into contact with the Native people of North America, it is the place of beginnings, flrst light -- and the possibility of starting again.These days people seek knowledge, not wisdom. Knowledge is of the past; wisdom is of the future.
Vernon Cooper (Lumbee), 1990"This chant is part of a healing ceremony incorporating sand painting, singing, and the gathering of a large number of people who lend support to the healing of the person who is ill. Among the Navajo, health is regarded as natural and sickness is a result of imbalance. Thus the ceremony restores balance to the person who is ill. The Navajo word hozhoni, which is translated here as "beauty" or "happily," combines the concepts of beauty, peace, harmony, and happiness.The House Made of Dawn,
from "The Night ChantIn Tsegihi,
In the house made of dawn,
In the house made of evening twilight,
In the house made of dark cloud,
In the house made of male rain,
In the house made of dark mist,
In the house made of female rain,
In the house made of pollen,
In the house made of grasshoppers,
Where the dark mist curtains the doorway,
The path to which is on the rainbow,
Where the zig-zag lightning stands on top,
Where the he-rain stands high on top,
Oh, male divinity!
With your moccasins of dark cloud, come to us.
With your leggings of dark cloud, come to us.
With your shirt of dark cloud, come to us.
With your headdress of dark cloud, come to us.
With your mind enveloped in dark cloud,
come to us.
With thedark thunder above you,
come to us soaring.
With the shapen cloud at your feet,
come to us soaring.
With the far darkness made of the dark cloud over your head,
come to us soaring.
With the far darkness made of the male rain over your head,
come to us soaring.
With the far darkness made of the female rain over your head,
come to us soaring.
With the zig-zag lightning flung out on high over your head,
come to us soaring.
With the rainbow hanging high over your head,
come to us soaring.
With the far darkness made of the dark cloud
on the ends of your wings, come to us
soaring.
With the darkness on the earth, come to us.
My feet restore for me.
My limbs restore for me.
My body restore for me.
My mind restore for me.
My voice restore for me.
Today, take out your spell for me.
Today, take away your spell for me.
Away from me you have taken it.
Far off from me it is taken.
Far off you have done it.
Happily I recover.
Happily my interior grows cool.
Happily my limbs regain their power.
Happily my head becomes cool.
Happily I hear again.
Happily I walk.
Impervious to pain, I walk.
Feeling light within, I walk.
with lively feelings, I walk....
Happily the old men will regard you.
Happily the old women will regard you.
Happily the young men will regard you.
Happily the young women will regard you.
Happily the boys will regard you.
Happily the girls will regard you.
Happily the children will regard you.
Happily the chiefs will regard you.
Happily, as they scatter in different directions,
they will regard you.
Happily, as they approach their homes,
they will regard you.
Happily may their roads home be on the trail of
pollen.
"Happily may they all get back.
In beauty I walk.
With beauty before me, I walk.
With beauty behind me, I walk.
With beauty below me, I walk.
With beauty above me, I walk.
With beauty all around me, I walk.
It is finished in beauty.
It is finished in beauty.
Traditional (Navajo), Translated In 18975
Synopsis
Another book in the Little Books of Wisdom series: portable, elegantly packaged inspiration from around the world -- irresistible for the impulse buyer and the serious reader alike.
About the Author
Joseph Bruchac lives with his wife, Carol, in the Adirondack mountainfoothills town of Greenfield Center, New York, in the same house where hismaternal grandparents raised him. Much of his writing has Native Americanthemes and draws on the land he lives on as well as his Abenaki ancestry.Although his American Indian heritage is only one part of an ethnicbackground that includes Slovak and English blood, those Native roots arethe ones by which he as been most nourished. He, his younger sister,Margaret, and his two grown sons, James and Jesse, continue to workextensively in projects involving the preservation of Abenaki culture,language, and traditional Native skills, including performing traditionaland contemporary Abenaki music with the Dawnland Singers.
He holds a B.A. from Cornell University, an M.A. in Literature and Creative Writing from Syracuse, and a Ph.D. in Comparative Literature from the Union Institute of Ohio.His work as an educator includes 8 years of directing a college program for Skidmore College inside a maximum security prison. With his wife, Carol, he is the founder and c-director of the Greenfield Review Literary Center and The Greenfield Review Press. He has edited a number of highly praised anthologies of contemporary poetry and fiction, including Songs from this Earth on Turtle's Back, Breaking Silence (winner of an American Book Award) and Returning the Gift.
His poems, articles and stories have appeared in over 500 publications, from American Poetry Review, Cricket, and Aboriginal Voices to NationalGeographic, Parabola, and Smithsonian Magazine. He has authored more than70 books for adults and children, including The First Strawberries, Keepersof the Earth (co-authored with Michael Cadult), Tell Me a Tale, When theChenoo Howls (co-authored with his son, James), his autobiography Bowman'sStore, and such novels as Dawn Land, The Waters Between, Arrow Over theDoor, and The Heart of a Chief. Forthcoming titles include Squanto's Journey (Harcourt), a picture book, Sacajawea's Story (Harcourt), a historical novel, Crazy Horse's Vision (Lee &Low), a picture book, and Pushing Up the Sky (Dial), a collectin of plays for children.
His honors include a Rockefeller Humanities fellowship, a National Endowment for the Arts Writing Fellowship for Poetry, the Cherokee Nation Prose Award, the Knickerbocker Award, the Hope S. Dean Award for Notable Achievement in Children's Literature and both the 1998 Writer of the Year Award and the 1998 Storyteller of the Year Award from the Wordcraft Circle of Native Writers and Storytellers. In 1999, he received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Native Writers Circle of the America.
As a professional teller of the traditional tales of the Adirondacks and the Native peoples of the Northeastern Woodlands, Joseph Bruchac has performed widely in Europe and throughout the U.S. from Florida to Hawaii and has been featured at such events as the British Storytelling Festival and the National Storytelling Festival in Jonesboro, TN. He has been astoryteller-in-residence for Native American organizations and schoolsthroughout the continent, including the Institute of Alaska Native Arts andthe Onondaga Nation School. He discusses Native culture and his books anddoes storytelling programs at dozens of elementary and secondary schoolseach year as a visiting author.