Indian Tales

Hailed by Ezra Pound as the American Ovid and renowned as a linguist and a self-described amateur anthropologist Jaime de Angulo drew on his forty years among the Pit River tribe of California to create the amalgam of fiction folklore tall tales jokes ceremonial ritual and adventure that is Indian Tales. He first wrote these stories to entertain his children borrowing freely from the worlds of the Pit and also of the Miwok Pomo and Karok. Here are the adventures of Father Bear Mother Antelope the little boy Fox and of course Old Man Coyote in a time when people and animals weren''t so very far apart. The author''s intent was not so much to rer anthropologically faithful translations-though they are here-as to create a magical world fueled by the power of storytelling while avoiding the dangers for the romantic and picturesque. True to the playful and imaginative spirit he portrays de Angulo mischievously recommends to readers: When you find yourself searching for some mechanical explanation if you don''t know the answer invent one. When you pick out some inconsistency or marvelous improbability satisfy your curiosity like the old Indian folk: ''Well that''s the way they tell that story. I didn''t make it up!''