Volume 218 in the Civilization of the American Indian Series

By using verse form and visual clues indicating pauses, intonations, and gestures, anthropologist Rodney Frey permits readers to hear the oral literature of narrators from the Coeur d'Alene, Crow, Klikitat, Kootenai, Nez Perce, Sanpoil, and Wasco people today in Washington, northern Idaho, and Montana. He places each of the twenty-three narratives in its larger cultural, literary, and expressive context, making this anthology an important resource both for American Indian people and for non-Native scholars and general readers. A glossary and a lesson-plan appendix facilitate the book's use in both secondary and college-level courses.

"The stories themselves are wonderful. . . . Frey is sensitive to the important issues of voice, representation, and ethnographic authority. [His] analysis is intelligent and intelligible to both a general reader and a specialist. It would be particularly suitable as a text for teaching Native American oral tradition."--Robin Ridington, Ethnohistory

"This reviewer knows of no work that introduces issues of orality and literacy so clearly or presents the argument for ethnopoetic transcription so convincingly to the nonspecialist, undergraduate, or graduate."--W. B. McCarthy, Choice