The world's myths are filled with characters, creatures, and stories that have fascinated people for thousands of years. This set mixes dramatic retellings and non-fiction information to give a full picture of a culture's myths. This book explores the gods, goddesses, heroes, villains, tricksters, and quests that make myths and legends so compelling.

A thought-provoking collection of searing prose from a Sioux woman that covers race, identity, assimilation, and perceptions of Native American culture Zitkala-Sa wrestled with the conflicting influences of American Indian and white culture throughout her life. Raised on a Sioux reservation, she was educated at boarding schools that enforced assimilation and was witness to major events in white-Indian relations in the late 1800s and early 1900s. Tapping her troubled personal history, Zitkala-Sa created stories that illuminate the tragedy and complexity of the American Indian experience. In evocative prose laced with political savvy, she forces new thinking about the perceptions, assumptions, and customs of both Sioux and white cultures and raises issues of assimilation, identity, and race relations that remain compelling today.

Two essential collections by a noted Sioux author: American Indian Stories assembles short stories as well as autobiographical and political essays, and Old Indian Legends features tales from the oral tradition.

Cherokee people like all other Native American Indian tribes possess a huge oral history. Before the time of written words, the history, customs and skills of a tribe were passed down through word-of-mouth and storytelling. Today, it is still an important part of Cherokee life. Elder tribe members use stories to teach morals and culture to children and others while keeping a rich history alive. Storytelling also allows people to get to know one another. The stories of the Cherokee people make us unique, but stories will be known only as long as they are told. When someone ceases to tell a story, part of our cultural knowledge is gone. Under old traditional law, these tales or stories were only told to fellow Cherokee or other Indian People. Many of these stories contained within this book were recorded by James Mooney who lived with the Cherokee in the 1800's. These include animal stories, creation myths, legends, and ghost stories, as well as, historical events such as the Trail of Tears. These stories have been passed from generation to generation and as with tradition, and have been left as much intact as possible. I learned many of these stories from my grandfather as a child, just as other Cherokee children did. As with tradition, these stories are now shared with you, to go forward and share with a future generation. In this collection, you will find such stories as Origin of the Pleiades and the Pine, What Became Of the Rabbit, The Rabbit Dines the Bear, The Rabbit Escapes from the Wolves, The Rattlesnake's Vengeance, The Red Man and the Uktena, The Eagle's Revenge, Agan-uni'tsi's Search for the Uktena, The Hunter and Selu, The Snake Boy, The First Fire, The Lost Cherokee and many, many more.

Zitkala-Sa (Gertrude Bonnin) recalls legends and tales from oral tradition and uses experiences from her life and community to educate others about the Yankton Sioux.

This edition recovers Elizabeth Oakes Smith’s successful 1842 novel The Western Captive; or, The Times of Tecumseh and includes many of Oakes Smith’s other writings about Native Americans, including short stories, legends, and autobiographical and biographical sketches. The Western Captive portrays the Shawnee leader as an American hero and the white heroine’s spiritual soulmate; in contrast to the later popular legend of Tecumseh’s rejected marriage proposal to a white woman, Margaret, the “captive” of the title, returns Tecumseh’s love and embraces life apart from white society. These texts are accompanied by selections from Oakes Smith’s Woman and Her Needs and her unpublished autobiography, from contemporary captivity narratives and biographies of William Henry Harrison depicting the Shawnee, and from writings by her colleagues Jane Johnston Schoolcraft and Henry Rowe Schoolcraft.

The Muse is one of the oldest archetypes in human civilization, and, in the past, was a representation of an idealized woman - blessed with beauty and creativity and exerting irresistible attraction for many a man. Nowadays, in the wake of feminism, the idea of the Muse seems a bit obsolete, quaint or downright sexist, and is said to enhance a vicious stereotype of the creative, productive and active man and the passive, submissive and docile woman. However, this book shows that this, in fa ...

The American short story has always been characterized by exciting aesthetic innovations and an immense range of topics. This handbook offers students and researchers a comprehensive introduction to the multifaceted genre with a special focus on recent developments due to the rise of new media. Part I provides systematic overviews of significant contexts ranging from historical-political backgrounds, short story theories developed by writers, print and digital culture, to current theoretical approaches and canon formation. Part II consists of 35 paired readings of representative short stories by eminent authors, charting major steps in the evolution of the American short story from its beginnings as an art form in the early nineteenth century up to the digital age. The handbook examines historically, methodologically, and theoretically the coming together of the enduring narrative practice of compression and concision in American literature. It offers fresh and original readings relevant to studying the American short story and shows how the genre performs American culture.

90 stories from tribes throughout the U.S. and Canada cover a wide range of subjects: tales of creation, heroes, witchcraft, monsters, romance, enchantment, tricksters, and more. Includes, among others, "The Origin of Daylight" (Tsimshian), "The Flying Head" (Oneida), "The Enchanted Moccasins" (Maskego), and "The Rabbit Goes Duck Hunting" (Cherokee).