The Flying Tiger. Women Shamans and Storytellers of the Amur ed. by Kira Van Deusen (review)

humanities 361 university of toronto quarterly, volume 72, number 1, winter 2002/3 Kira Van Deusen, editor. The Flying Tiger. Women Shamans and Storytellers of the Amur McGill-Queen=s University Press. xiv, 260. $65.00, $27.95 The Flying Tiger by Kira Van Deusen might well be the most unusual book published in the past year. While there is almost no information about the author or her background, except that she is a storyteller and has a BA in Russian, it is clear she has a passion for the subject of Indigenous cultures and storytelling among Native people, especially women and shamans. Van Deusen has travelled many times to the Amur region of Russia, which is very near the border of China, and not too far from Mongolia in the east and Japan and Korea in the west. She has gained the trust of her subjects, who, as she says herself, have gone from being her >informants= to being her friends. The author travels to small villages all along the Amur River with her contacts, and listens to the stories of acknowledged storytellers, mostly women, although there are some men as well. The stories are caught on her tape recorder and translated into Russian by her contacts, and then into English by herself. They are mostly the mythic tales of the people, which have undergone various changes in the sweep of history. The incursions of the Soviet system changed everything for the people of the Amur, as have the chaotic effects of >globalization= and of living with hardly any system at all. Whichever way you look at it, this is a fascinating book. As a simple travel book, it has a great deal of value. We see how people live, how they travel and what their interests and concerns are, because the author describes what she sees and she interviews people about their lives. We see the background of their culture through the stories, and we get to experience their humour and sometimes their passions. The book describes the landscape, the villages and their economies, and the social problems related to gender, alcoholism, Indigenous culture, education of the young, and the position of women. Purely for its informative value, therefore, this book is worthwhile. But this is a fascinating collection on the level of Indigenous stories as well. In fact, the book is mostly a gathering of stories the author has recorded, and there is a minimum of text around them. The scarcity of information and context, as well as the absence of scholarly theorizing, may be seen as a drawback. However, this volume remains a good source of raw material. One of the most interesting aspects of this book is the relationship which Van Deusen makes apparent between storytelling and embroidery art. The work of women=s hands is much more than decorative, but the actual sociological, mythological, and spiritual implications of all this work with threads and cloth and skins are not always in the foreground when Indigenous peoples are studied. The subtle way in which Van Deusen makes a strong case for >forgotten areas= of cultures comes through in 362 letters in canada 2001 university of toronto quarterly, volume 72, number 1, winter 2002/3 simple observations, and especially in photographs of amazing dresses and shirts embroidered with significant designs. The whole idea of dressing while telling a story is most interesting, as is the notion of the protective power of embroidered designs. The value of womanhood, as described by many of the tales, is seen in the quality of a woman=s handiwork. The stories themselves, which compose the centre of the book, are very strange to a Western reader. When all of them are read in a lump, in fact, they have a very dark effect. Most of them are about people >marrying= animals, which means mating with them, having animal children, metamorphosing into objects or animals and back again. The main concern of the tales seems to be finding a mate, and what really comes through is the isolation of individual households. There are many stories of girls and women living alone, and of sons and daughters having to travel very far just...