Amerindiana

Amerindiana H.David Brumble, III. An Annotated Bibliography ofAmerican Indian and Eskimo Autobiographies. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1981. 178 + ix pp. Hugh A. Dempsey. Red Crow, Warrior Chief Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1980. 248 + viii pp. DellHymes. "In vain I tried to tellyou": Essaysin Native American Ethnopoetics. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1981.402 +ix pp. KarlKroeber, ed. Traditional Literatures of the American Indian: Texts and Interpretations. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1981. 162 + ix pp. Ralph Maud Hymes and Kroeber are convincing in their prediction that, when North American Indian myth receives the same kind of care and attention that has been given to other oral traditions-ancient Greek, for instance-the mass of ethnographic texts will yield a corpus of rich and rewarding literature. Three of the six contributors to Traditional Literatures of the American Indian are professors of English, ready to apply the tools of their trade to this interdisciplinary study. They recognize that English departments have always stood for what the distinguished folklorist Alan Dundes has called "the exploration of the interrelation between ... textures, text, and context." This, asserts Karl Kroeber in fellowship, "is, in fact, what literary criticism is all about" (p. 4). Thus, in the spirit of "New Criticism;' he has invited co-workers to present texts and interpretations which indicate the advances recently made in this interesting field of scholarly endeavor. Jarold Ramsey very sensibly leads off with an obvious winner in the Orpheus figure, a theme of world-wide appeal. With the Nez Perce version, "Coyote and the Shadow People;' we are given a sample of the North American Indian repertoire which is indisputably attractive when examined appreciatively. For this Coyote story no Native language text is available, so that the question of translation does not arise. With the other contributions thisquestion is paramount; and, although Kroeber does not believe that we should "abandon the analysis of texture to linguists" (p. 3) and with Canadian Review of American Studies, Volume 14, Number 1, Spring 1983,71-77 72 Ralph Maud commendable bravado tackles both a Kato and a Nez Perce tale in interlinear translation, the English profs have to acknowledge that they can get close to the texts only by leaning heavily on language specialists. This is illustrated clearly in Barre Toelken's contribution, which is a "poetic retranslation" of the story of Coyote and the Skunk as told to Toelken by Yellowman, a much referred-to text since its publication in Genre (September 1969) and reprinting by Dan Ben-Amos in Folklore Genres (1976).Toelken brought to his first translation his own experience of the Navajo language as an adopted member of Yellowman's family, plus the specific help of one of Yellowman's daughters. This has since proved to have been insufficient for the complete task. For the new article, Toelken has taken a co-translator in the person of Orville Tacheeni Scott, a Navajo Ph.D. candidate in biology at the University of Oregon, where Toelken also works. Scott has been able to rectify some serious mistakes and bring to light important new perceptions. Since the first version was so much admired by everyone, the situation might now be quite embarrassing but for the fact that the new results are as astounding as the original article was ten years ago. The techniques Toelken then used to bring us closer to the performance situation as he got it on tape on the evening of December 19, 1966- chiefly the inclusion of audience reaction and shared laughter- have now been refined and added to; so that what is down on the page communicates very accurately what was said, how it was said and the effect it had on those present. By Toelken's courageous act of scholarship, Yellowman's Coyote story retains its prime position as a classic example of (to use Dell Hymes's phrase) the "doing of a story:' as opposed to what is so common in texts gathered by ethnologists, the mere "telling about how a story used to be done. Besides the input of co-translater Scott, Toelken has utilized the work of Dennis Tedlock and Dell Hymes published since his first article. Both of...