Shamans and Kushtakas: North Coast Tales of the Supernatural by Mary Giraudo Beck (review)

Reviews 363 and, arguably, moral decay. Focused mainly on life in Oakland, California during and after World War II, Buffalo Nickel is an honest, painful, startling portrait of the artist’s family; what Salas reveals is tragedy upon tragedy offset only by his literary triumphs and his final rejection ofhis brother’slifestyle. With crime, drugs, and boxing, suicide is a prevailing force in this book. Beginning with the suicide of another older brother, Eddy, an educated but ultimately troubled man, Salas recounts the details of seven more suicides. Three ofAl’schildren and a daughter-in-law kill themselves, and a fourth dies a gruesome, horrible death—heroin destroys the valves ofhis heart. Indeed, selfdestruction issomuch a partofhis life that the author admits “I had read a stack of books ... on suicide”to try to understand the legacy of death surrounding him. Salas’srelationship with his brother A1forms the core of this tale. Initially, the young SalasworshipsA1and follows him into the world ofboxing; however, soon SalasisfollowingA1into pettycrime and drugs. The author then details his failed efforts to help his older brother “go straight,” as well as his troubled decision, finally, to disassociate himself from Al. And without offering some easy, pat solution, Salas is equally honest in his description of a final, loving, brotherly attempt at compassion when Al must face yet another tragic death of a loved one. Buffalo Nickel is not an easy read. Despite its interesting glimpses into the seamier, deadlier sides of life in the ’50s and ’60s in Oakland and its environs, the tale of Salas and his family is near-Senecan with regard to death, betrayal, disappointment, disillusionment. No easy answers are proffered, no happy endings are suggested; yet, finally, this is a book that deserves attention. Ulti­ mately, it reveals awriter’slife—stripped bare, harsh and mean. BuffaloNickelis a fine piece ofwork. ROBERT HEADLEY Southern State Community College, Ohio Shamans and Kushtakas: North Coast Tales of the Supernatural By Mary Giraudo Beck. (Bothell, Washington: Alaska Northwest Books, 1991. 128 pages, $12.95.) This book makes a pleasant addition to North Coast literature. Its stories are drawn from the traditions of the Haida and Tlingit peoples of southeast Alaska. These tribes, though linguisticallydistinct, share many patterns ofmyth and culture. Beck’sstories celebrate the texture ofthis rich ethnographywithin the framework of nine traditional narratives. An informative introduction alerts the reader to key aspects ofHaida/ Tlingit storytelling and beliefs. All nine stories deal with supernatural themes. Four feature kushtakas, 364 Western American Literature shadowy creatures (half-human, half-otter) transformed from people lost or drowned atsea. Fivefocus on the activities—helpful, heroic, vain, malicious—of shamans. Since kushtaka adventures typicallyrequire the timely intervention of a powerful shaman, it is the shaman who is truly the central figure of these stories. Myown favorite is “Xat and the Feather Kite,”in which villagers are pulled one byone into the skybyafeather, “like the knotted tail ofa kite.”Xatisable to rescue them thanks to his selfless tempering of mind and body. In what could well frame a moral for the whole collection, Xat’s grandmother admonishes him: “You need to work at becoming strong and to become clean so you will be ready for your spirit powers when they come to you,”she says, “And respect our traditions even when they seem to contradict what you would like to believe.” Among their other dimensions, all these stories in one way or another are fables, object lessons in the importance ofobserving—and the consequences of violating—traditional patterns ofconduct, from routine habit to sacred ritual. Enjoyable as these stories are, readers should be aware that they are not (nor do they pretend to be) translations of tales performed by Haida and Tlingitstorytellers. Rather, theyare English interpretations oftraditional stories and customs. While they may be carefully grounded in tradition (Beck, a community college teacher, has been gathering such stories for 40 years), the stories themselves are cast solidly in the tradition of the European literary folktale. They evoke the spirit, but do not reflect the forms, of traditional oral narrative. The plus side is that the stories are immediately accessible to a general audience: they have afamiliarfeel, for all their strangeness, and there...