Stories From Quechan Oral Literature
by Amy Miller /
2014 / English / PDF
3.5 MB Download
The Quechan are a Yuman people who have traditionally lived along
the lower part of the Colorado River in California and Arizona.
They are well known as warriors, artists, and traders, and they
also have a rich oral tradition. The stories in this volume were
told by tribal elders in the 1970s and early 1980s. The eleven
narratives in this volume take place at the beginning of time and
introduce the reader to a variety of traditional characters,
including the infamous Coyote and also Kwayúu the giant, Old Lady
Sanyuuxáv and her twin sons, and the Man Who Bothered Ants. This
book makes a long-awaited contribution to the oral literature and
mythology of the American Southwest, and its format and
organization are of special interest. Narratives are presented in
the original language and in the storytellers' own words. A
prosodically-motivated broken-line format captures the rhetorical
structure and local organization of the oral delivery and calls
attention to stylistic devices such as repetition and syntactic
parallelism. Facing-page English translation provides a key to the
original Quechan for the benefit of language learners. The stories
are organized into "story complexes", that is, clusters of
narratives with overlapping topics, characters, and events, told
from diverse perspectives. In presenting not just stories but story
complexes, this volume captures the art of storytelling and
illuminates the complexity and interconnectedness of an important
body of oral literature. Stories from Quechan Oral Literature
provides invaluable reading for anyone interested in Native
American cultural heritage and oral traditions more generally.
The Quechan are a Yuman people who have traditionally lived along
the lower part of the Colorado River in California and Arizona.
They are well known as warriors, artists, and traders, and they
also have a rich oral tradition. The stories in this volume were
told by tribal elders in the 1970s and early 1980s. The eleven
narratives in this volume take place at the beginning of time and
introduce the reader to a variety of traditional characters,
including the infamous Coyote and also Kwayúu the giant, Old Lady
Sanyuuxáv and her twin sons, and the Man Who Bothered Ants. This
book makes a long-awaited contribution to the oral literature and
mythology of the American Southwest, and its format and
organization are of special interest. Narratives are presented in
the original language and in the storytellers' own words. A
prosodically-motivated broken-line format captures the rhetorical
structure and local organization of the oral delivery and calls
attention to stylistic devices such as repetition and syntactic
parallelism. Facing-page English translation provides a key to the
original Quechan for the benefit of language learners. The stories
are organized into "story complexes", that is, clusters of
narratives with overlapping topics, characters, and events, told
from diverse perspectives. In presenting not just stories but story
complexes, this volume captures the art of storytelling and
illuminates the complexity and interconnectedness of an important
body of oral literature. Stories from Quechan Oral Literature
provides invaluable reading for anyone interested in Native
American cultural heritage and oral traditions more generally.