Arapaho Stories, Songs, and Prayers: A Bilingual Anthology
574
Arapaho Stories, Songs, and Prayers: A Bilingual Anthology
574Paperback(Bilingual)
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Overview
A bison and a bobtailed horse race across the sky, raising a trail of dust behind them—leaving in their wake the Milky Way to forever mark their path. An unknown Arapaho teller shared this account with an ethnographer in 1893, explaining that the race determined which animal would be ridden, which would be food. Traditional American Indian oral narratives, ranging from origin stories to trickster tales and prayers, constitute part of the great heritage of each tribe. Many of these narratives, gathered in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, were obtained or published only in English translation. Although this is the case with many Arapaho stories, extensive Arapaho-language texts exist that have never before been published—until now. Arapaho Stories, Songs, and Prayers gives new life to these manuscripts, celebrating Arapaho oral narrative traditions in all the richness of their original language.Working with Alonzo Moss, Sr., and William J. C’Hair, two fluent native speakers of Arapaho, Andrew Cowell retranscribes these texts—collected between the early 1880s and the late 1920s—into modern Arapaho orthography, and retranslates and annotates them in English. Masterpieces of oral literature, these texts include creation accounts, stories about the Arapaho trickster character Nih'oo3oo, animal tales, anecdotes, songs, prayers, and ceremonial speeches. In addition to a general introduction, the editors offer linguistic, stylistic, thematic, and cultural commentary and context for each of the texts.More than any other work, this book affords new insights into Arapaho language and culture. It expands the Arapaho lexicon, discusses Arapaho values and ethos, and offers a uniquely informed perspective on Arapaho storytelling. An unparalleled work of recovery and preservation, it will at once become the reference guide to the Arapaho language and its texts.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780806159669 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | University of Oklahoma Press |
| Publication date: | 09/18/2017 |
| Edition description: | Bilingual |
| Pages: | 574 |
| Product dimensions: | 6.10(w) x 9.20(h) x 1.30(d) |
| Language: | Arapaho |
About the Author
Andrew Cowell is Professor and Chair of Linguistics and the Department of French and Italian at the University of Colorado. He is an expert on the Arapaho language and author of numerous books and articles, including Remedies for a New West: Healing Landscapes, Histories, and Cultures (ed. with Patricia Limerick and Sharon Collinge) and The Arapaho Language (with Alonzo Moss, Sr.).
Alonzo Moss, Sr., (1938–2015) was a cochair of the Northern Arapaho Language and Culture Commission in Wyoming.
William J. C’Hair is a cochair of the Northern Arapaho Language and Culture Commission in Wyoming.
Table of Contents
Arapaho Orthography and Pronunciation ix
Introduction 1
Creation Accounts and Etiological Narratives
The Turtle Fetches Up the Earth from the Bottom of the Waters, teller unknown 41
The Creation of the Earth, by White Breast [English only] 45
The Myth of the Milky Way, teller unknown 50
Yellow Bull Races the Horse, teller unknown 52
The Arapaho Migration across the Missouri River to the … Jesse Rowlodge 55
Naming the Earth, teller unknown 58
Trickster (Nih'oo3oo/"White Man") Stories
The Sun Dance Cycle
When Nih'oo3oo Witnessed the Sun Dance Cleaver Warden 63
Nih'oo3oo and the Elk Head John Goggles 69
Nih'oo3oo and the Burrs John Goggles 73
Nih'oo3oo Cuts His Hair Cleaver Warden 76
Other Trickster Stories
Nih'oo3oo and the Plums, teller unknown 87
Nih'oo3oo and the Elk Benejah Miles 89
Pemmican Floating Downstream Cleaver Warden 92
Nih'oo3oo Pursued by the Roiling Skull Philip Rapid/Rabbit 102
Nih'oo3oo and the Deer Women Cleaver Warden 110
Nih'oo3oo and Whirlwind Woman, teller unknown 113
Nih'oo3oo and the Ducks Cleaver Warden 117
Nih'oo3oo and the Dancing Ducks Phillip Rapid/Rabbit 120
Nih'oo3oo and the Ducks John Goggles 130
Nih'oo3oo and the Bears Benejah Miles 135
Nih'oo3oc Sharpens His Leg and Dives on the Ice Philip Rapid/ Rabbit 140
Nih'oo3oo and the Coyote Philip Rapid/Rabbit 151
Nih'oo3oo Sends His Penis across the River Cleaver Warden 153
The Origin of Death, teller unknown 160
Nih'oo3oo Loses His Eyes, teller unknown 162
Nih'oo3oo and the Man Who Dove through the Ice John Goggles 166
Nih'oo3oo Arrives for a Visit Cleaver Warden 169
Nih'oo3oo and the Seven Sisters Cleaver Warden 173
One-Eyed Sioux and His Mother-in-Law Cleaver Warden 186
Legends/Myths
Lime Crazy Cleaver Warden 197
The White Crow Cleaver Warden 212
The White Dog and the Woman Cleaver Warden 225
The Alligators, teller unknown 238
Open Brain or Tangled Hair Caspar Edson 241
Found-in-the-Grass John Goggles 292
The Cannibal Boy Little Shield [English only] 317
The Beheaded Ones Cleaver Warden 320
The Man Who Turned into a Spring Cleaver Warden 334
The Woman and the Porcupine John Goggles 344
The Porcupine and the Woman Who Climbed to the Sky Philip Rapid/Rabbit 354
The Man Who Sharpened His Foot Philip Rapid/Rabbit 360
The Midgets, teller unknown 366
The Little People (Alexander?) Yellow Man 371
The Girl Who Became a Bear Philip Rapid/Rabbit 375
Blue Bird, Elk Woman, and Buffalo Woman Wolf Bear [English only] 382
Animal Stories
The Turtle and the Rabbit, teller unknown 389
The Skunk and the Rabbit Cleaver Warden 392
The Bear Who Abused His Wife Cleaver Warden 399
Anecdotal Stories of Wondrous Events
Big Belly's Adventure, possibly Cleaver Warden 403
The Woman and the Horse Caspar Edson 407
Anecdotal Stories
The Faithless Woman and the Kiowa Philip Rapid/Rabbit 415
True Incident (The Birth of Young Bull), probably by Cleaver Warden 422
Prayers and Ceremonial Speeches
Prayer: Blessing on This Food Cleaver Warden 429
Speech of Man's Father at Marriage Cleaver Warden 433
Speech of Woman's Father at Marriage Cleaver Warden 440
Prayer of Spotted Bear's Wife (to the Sacred Pipe), Wife of Spotted Bear 443
Prayer at a Young Man's Change of Name Cleaver Warden 450
Song Texts
Hand-Game Songs 463
Lullabies 466
Age-Grade Society Songs 467
Love Songs 468
War Songs 472
Sun Dance Songs 474
Ghost Dance Songs 476
Crow Dance Songs 487
Ghost Dance Songs from James Mooney 490
The Ghost Dance Paul Boynton 517
Account of the Ghost Dance Henry North 520
Appendix A Other Early Arapaho Texts 523
Appendix B Grammar 527
References 547
Index 553