Preferred Citation: Luthin, Herbert W., editor Surviving Through the Days: Translations of Native California Stories and Songs. Berkeley:  University of California Press,  c2002 2002. http://ark.cdlib.org/ark:/13030/kt1r29q2ct/


 

B. Collections of Story and Song in Translation

There is a surprising amount of California oral literature in English translation. Malcolm Margolin's The Way We Lived: California Indian Stories, Songs, and Reminiscences is a fine and wide-ranging newer collection, drawn from authentic sources, with enlightening commentary on each selection. Earlier anthologies include Frank Latta's California Indian Folklore and Edward Gi ord and Gwendoline Block's California Indian Nights. Theodora Kroeber's The Inland Whale contains literary reworkings of authentic traditional stories. One of the oldest sources is Jeremiah Curtin's Creation Myths of Primitive America, originally published in 1898 and containing a large body of Yana and Wintu myths. Beyond these, there are quite a number of collections focused on particular tribes and languages: Thomas Blackburn's December's Child: A Book of


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Chumash Oral Narratives; Alfred Kroeber's Yurok Myths, A Mohave Historical Epic, Seven Mohave Myths, and More Mohave Myths; Alfred Kroeber and Edward Gi ord's Karok Myths; Robert Spott and Alfred Kroeber's Yurok Narratives; Istet Woiche's Annikadel: The History of the Universe as Told by the Achumawi Indians of California; Julian Lang's Ararapíkva: Creation Stories of the People; Jaime de Angulo's How the World Was Made, Shabegok, and Indian Tales (fictionalized settings of mostly retold Achumawi, Miwok, and Pomo tales); William Shipley's wonderful translations of The Maidu Indian Myths and Stories of Hánc'ibyjim; Leanne Hinton and Susan Roth's children's-book version of Ishi's Tale of Lizard; and Carobeth Laird's Mirror and Pattern, a collection of Chemehuevi stories (with commentary) told by her second husband, George Laird.

Two publications stand out for their pure loveliness as books to have and hold: Mourning Dove, a Yurok/English Tale (a chapbook put out by Heyday Books); and the Yosemite Association's Legends of the Yosemite Miwok, edited by Frank LaPena, Craig D. Bates, and Steven Medley.

Finally, though they do not focus exclusively on California traditions, the following works incorporate significant California materials: Brian Swann's Song of the Sky and Wearing the Morning Star, which contain the poet's versions of several classic and beautiful California songs; Leanne Hinton and Lucille Watahomigie's Spirit Mountain, which presents bilingual (and occasionally trilingual) versions of Yuman oral literature, including Mojave, Diegueño, Quechan, and Kiliwa; William Bright's A Coyote Reader, which contains translations of Coyote tales from a number of di erent California traditions; and Brian Swann's mammoth anthology Coming to Light: Contemporary Translations of the Native Literatures of North America, which includes selections from Yana, Karuk, Atsugewi, and Maidu.


 

Preferred Citation: Luthin, Herbert W., editor Surviving Through the Days: Translations of Native California Stories and Songs. Berkeley:  University of California Press,  c2002 2002. http://ark.cdlib.org/ark:/13030/kt1r29q2ct/