Native American Oral Traditions: Collaboration and Interpretation (review)

This book was originally published as Oral Tradition 13, no. 1 (March 1998). With the addition of an incisive foreword by John Miles Foley, editor of Oral Tradition, adding breadth and depth, the book considers practices from several times and places, not least of which is ten years of work with the Siri epic of the Tulu (India) bard, Gopala Naika, by the late Lauri Honko and others.

In their introduction, Evers and Toelken review their own relationship, characterize the relationships of the other contributors, and project what remains to be done. The seven chapters that follow all have value. I was particularly struck by the frankness and richness of Ofelia Zepeda and Jane Hill, as they alternate in depicting efforts to search out speakers of Tohono O'odham (formerly "Papago"—a change of name that itself is an example of an increased native role).

The seven pairs of collaborators often are friends, in one case wife and husband (Nora Marks Dauenhauer [Tlingit] and Richard L. Dauenhauer). In one case, the person seeking out a source is Indian (Darryl Babe Wilson) and the person being sought is white (Susan Brandenstein Park). Brandenstein had done fieldwork sixty years before (1931), but her field notes, including narratives, had remained unpublished. The two collaborated to preserve them (in the nick of time) and make them publishable. The text presented is in itself significant, a further version of a major myth, "Loon Woman" (compare the Wintu text recently presented in H. W. Luthin, ed., Surviving through the Days [University of California Press, 2002]).

George B. Wasson and Barre Toelken, collaborators on "Coyote and the Strawberries: Cultural Drama and Intercultural Collaboration," have long been friends. Let me note that this story appeared in a public folkloric context once before, the annual meeting of the AFS in Portland (1974). After I ended my presidential address with Charles Cultee's "Sun's Myth" (Kathlamet Chinook)—a tragedy depicting the destruction of a people through hubris—Wasson agreed to balance things by sharing "Coyote and the Strawberries" with the audience in the Benson Hotel. This chapter quite rightly bears the heading, "Coos and Coquelle Traditions." In recent years the Miluk Coos and the Coquelle have joined together under the latter name (of a river shared by both). There is another Coos language, Hanis (to the north around Coos Bay). Coquelle is an Athapaskan language, upriver from the Miluk at the river's mouth. The map (p. 177) does not show this, and a note mistakenly says that Kusan (Miluk, Hanis) is Athapaskan (p. 179).

It is disappointing that the way texts are presented in this book gives no indication of the kinds of implicit organization—not just lines, but sets of lines, and groups of such sets (verses, stanzas, scenes)—found in narratives in a good many Native American languages and in many languages elsewhere, including English. Perhaps the omissions are because such organization, much like syntax, is largely out of awareness for speakers—of English as much as of any language.

It is to be hoped that many will join these collaborators in sharing their experiences. Sometimes, to be sure, collaboration may be more complex than a pair of people. Some years ago at Warm Springs Reservation, in Oregon, a Sahaptin elder, Linton Winishut, singled out Virginia Hymes to record his elaboration of the Coyote cycle. When that was done (and paid for), he told her to collaborate on the translation with the woman with whom she had been working in the language program, Hazel Suppah. Suppah in turn, when unsure of an "old" word, would seek out other women, expanding the collaborative process.

Further, one can and should also collaborate with narrators no longer living by recovering the original manuscripts, if possible, making sure that what was written down was indeed what they said, and clarifying the...