The burnt-red badlands of Montana's Hell Creek are a vast graveyard of the Cretaceous dinosaurs that lived 68 million years ago. Those hills were, much later, also home to the Sioux, the Crows, and ...the Blackfeet, the first people to encounter the dinosaur fossils exposed by the elements. What did Native Americans make of these stone skeletons, and how did they explain the teeth and claws of gargantuan animals no one had seen alive? Did they speculate about their deaths? Did they collect fossils?
Beginning in the East, with its Ice Age monsters, and ending in the West, where dinosaurs lived and died, this richly illustrated and elegantly written book examines the discoveries of enormous bones and uses of fossils for medicine, hunting magic, and spells. Well before Columbus, Native Americans observed the mysterious petrified remains of extinct creatures and sought to understand their transformation to stone. In perceptive creation stories, they visualized the remains of extinct mammoths, dinosaurs, pterosaurs, and marine creatures as Monster Bears, Giant Lizards, Thunder Birds, and Water Monsters. Their insights, some so sophisticated that they anticipate modern scientific theories, were passed down in oral histories over many centuries.
Drawing on historical sources, archaeology, traditional accounts, and extensive personal interviews, Adrienne Mayor takes us from Aztec and Inca fossil tales to the traditions of the Iroquois, Navajos, Apaches, Cheyennes, and Pawnees.Fossil Legends of the First Americansrepresents a major step forward in our understanding of how humans made sense of fossils before evolutionary theory developed.
A la larga, empero, la artista extendió la relación con la Atenas del sud hasta el verano de I960, en que intervino con oficio mayor y genio en la Escuela de Temporada de ese año augural, organizada, ...como era proverbial, por la universidad local, a iniciativa del prominente lírico Gonzalo Rojas. Aquella que, a cada tanto, exterioriza resentimientos pasionales en contra de los sujetos "con estudios" y preparación académica formal; que deja fuera de su escuela de cueca a cierto periodista lugareño únicamente porque le sienta mal (en tanto le da entrada a una joven vecina por la virtud contraria caerle bien); o la que expulsa con extraña prepotencia de ese mismo seminario a una agraciada profesora local solo por el disgusto que le inspira su forma personal, recatada en todo caso, de bailar la danza nacional. Aunque, sugiere, sin embargo, la misma folklorista, el ave carnicera puede muy bien ser el capitalismo 334-6.
This study was carried out in the framework of cultural linguistic studies and is dedicated to the study of the concept of "bure" (wolf) in the material of Tatar and Kazakh folklore texts. These ...texts are of great interest to study the special characteristics of national consciousness, mentality and national culture. The objective of the study was to establish the linguistic characteristics of the concept "bure/kaskir" (wolf) in the awareness of the Tatar and Kazakh language, using the descriptive, comparative-typological methods and several others, reaching conclusions such as the concept "bure" (wolf) is one of the key concepts of Tatar Images of the world in Kazakh language, related to human life, with its spiritual values and the religion of people.
The goals and challenges that face the people of Israel are vividly illustrated by the country’s many folk stories. Here Haya Bar-Itzhak presents these tales—gathered from the early settlers of the ...kibbutz, from immigrants who arrived in Israel after independence, and from ethnic groups—to create a panoramic view of a fascinatingly complex society.
Creating stories set in the past, even the recent past, is a way for societies to express their problems, adversities, yearnings, and hopes. Bar-Itzhak finds this true among inhabitants of the kibbutz, who find their society at a crossroads as a result of changes in Israeli society at large. She reveals the symbolic dimensions of their stories—some dealing with the death of young soldiers (sacrificed sons) in battle—as pointing to the complexity of a local culture that expresses the ethos of Labor Zionism.
In a section dealing with the folklore of immigrants, Bar-Itzhak focuses on the narratives of Yemenite Jews and Polish Jews. Their stories express their traumatic meeting with Israeli society while providing a means for coming to grips with it. The final section, dealing with ethnic folklore of Moroccan Jews, explores the wonder tale through the perspective of disabled and elderly storytellers, who in the language of their community seek to defend their own values and norms, and examines the saints’ legends and the body language usually employed in the telling of them. Throughout, the author illuminates the unique challenge of experiencing ethnicity as Jews vis-à-vis other Jews.
Israeli Folk Narratives combines new data with insightful analyses. Anyone interested in folk stories and Israeli culture will be enlightened by this sensitive, thought-provoking book.
How to Read a Folktale offers the first English translation of Ibonia, a spellbinding tale of old Madagascar. Ibonia is a folktale on epic scale. Much of its plot sounds familiar: a powerful royal ...hero attempts to rescue his betrothed from an evil adversary and, after a series of tests and duels, he and his lover are joyfully united with a marriage that affirms the royal lineage. These fairytale elements link Ibonia with European folktales, but the tale is still very much a product of Madagascar. It contains African-style praise poetry for the hero; it presents Indonesian-style riddles and poems; and it inflates the form of folktale into epic proportions. Recorded when the Malagasy people were experiencing European contact for the first time, Ibonia proclaims the power of the ancestors against the foreigner. Through Ibonia, Lee Haring expertly helps readers to understand the very nature of folktales. His definitive translation, originally published in 1994, has now been fully revised to emphasize its poetic qualities, while his new introduction and detailed notes give insight into the fascinating imagination and symbols of the Malagasy. Haring’s research connects this exotic narrative with fundamental questions not only of anthropology but also of literary criticism.
PDF