The Inland Whale: Nine Stories Retold from California Indian Legends [Paperback]

Theodora Kroeber (Author), Oliver La Farge (Foreword)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0520006763 | ISBN-13: 978-0520006768 | Publication Date: September 1, 1963

Nine tales, selected and retold here by anthropologist and author Theodora Kroeber for the adult general-interest reader. The new foreword by her son, Karl Kroeber, provides context about the author's methods and describes his own personal connection to the stories themselves.

--This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"These stories enlarge life. They remind us of Shakespeare and Aeschylus.... That Mrs. Kroeber's book should generate such thoughts is proof of its power and beauty." - New York Times Book Review "Thanks to Mrs. Kroeber's simple, supple style, the stories all succeed as stories; they please, engage, move, or divert without depending for their effect on their exotic source." - The New Yorker "This is a jewel of a book." - San Francisco Chronicle" --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

From the Inside Flap

PRAISE FOR THE FIRST EDITION:

"Thanks to Mrs. Kroeber's simple, supple style, the stories all succeed as stories; they please, engage, move, or divert without depending for their effect on their exotic source."--The New Yorker

"The varying but almost always superb story style of these narratives will speak to all."--New York Herald Tribune

"This is a jewel of a book."--San Francisco Chronicle

"These stories enlarge life. They remind us of Shakespeare and Aeschylus. . .. That Mrs. Kroeber's book should generate such thoughts is proof of its power and beauty."--New York Times Book Review --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 216 pages
• Publisher: University of California Press (September 1, 1963)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0520006763
• ISBN-13: 978-0520006768
• Product Dimensions: 7.9 x 5.3 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,092,116 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Voices of the First Americans, June 29, 2003

By 

Douglas LaRose (Santa Barbara, CA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Inland Whale: Nine Stories Retold from California Indian Legends (Textbook Binding)

Kroeber heard these stories mostly from Natives who had begun their syncretism with the modern world. These stories are rightly told in a contemporary fashion. For instance, Eskimo kinship terms are utilized to establish kindred, (grandfather, uncle, etc.) instead of the more traditional, descriptive anthropological method of using terms such as "fathers-mothers-sister."

Theodora Kroeber can be congratulated for this great little book of traditional stories from California's Native Americans. Lessons can be learned, values can be taught, and more importantly, the people who originally inhabited these lands can have their voices heard. This book is appropriate for all age groups, but I would insist also that this book be read to youngsters, who could indubitably benefit from the lessons taught within.

Truly a great piece of ethnographic work and literature simultaneously.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Poem for Ishi, October 14, 2009

By 

Giordano Bruno (Wherever I am, I am.) - See all my reviews
(HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: The Inland Whale: Nine Stories Retold from California Indian Legends (Paperback)

Theodora Kroeber is best known for her account of Ishi, the Yahi or Yana Native American who emerged from a life of evasion of 'the White Man' in Northern California, at the beginning of the 20th Century, and had the fortune to fall into the 'care' of anthropologists rather than bounty hunters. Theodora never met Ishi. Her book was first published in 1961, while Ishi died in 1916. Theodora worked from the notes of her famous pioneering anthropologist husband, Alfred Kroeber, after his death. Details of her account have been challenged by later writers, but the story of Ishi has become an icon of America's callous disruption and decimation of indigenous cultures. Indeed, of all the nations of the Western Hemisphere, the USA has most thoroughly and hypocritically 'cleansed' itself of its "First Nations" , their languages and their significance in the modern population. Ishi spent his few last years at what is now the UCSF Medical Center, wher he is said to have roamed the wildly neglected UC property called The Sutro Forest. That land is still undeveloped and overgrown, though the vegetation isn't remotely what Ishi might have explored. There are semi-secret paths through the gullies of the forest, and one comes upon makeshift tributes to Ishi here and there.

It was the second marriage for both the elderly Alfred and the younger Theodora. Their daughter is the well-known fantasy novelist Ursula Le Guin, who in turn has a daughter, Elizabeth Le Guin, who is a very fine baroque cellist, performing with Philhormonia and Tafelmusik. Quite a family!

This is a collection of stories based on the oral traditional narratives of Northern Californian Native Americans. It is not written as ethnographic material; rather, the stories are told in forthright literary English. Nonetheless, they taste and smell authentic, and make excellent reading. Both of Theodora Kreober's book are popular assignments to high school students in California, as they should be. The title story tells of a young gray whale tossed by a tsunami into a fresh water lake; it's a reflection of the kind of calamity that can result from "imbalance" between humanity and nature. And it's a memorable story as literature.

I first read this collection many years ago. As if by fate, it suddenly popped up at the top of my to-read-again stack. The title story still impressed me, so I wrote a poem in response to its impact:

THE INLAND WHALE

A hard land to need
consolation from. An awkward visit,
rainy weather in a small tent. What tells it to exist?
Subsistence in the cave of care
conditions one, as the thoughts of a landlocked whale

teach one to dream of whales,
one who camps out at this inland sea and persists
despite overweariness. Without some need,
a self gets stagnant.... a landscape too familiar to visit,
a flood reflected in a puddle, a care

which accommodates itself. Those who care
are amphibious and may procreate in need,
though both care and need are fantasies of a whale
which fills its pond to overflowing, as the womb would be filled
if the child could more than visit.

A hard land to visit:
steep granitic shores, from which the whale's
fluke, or its spout, is visible at times...where if you care
to listen, you can hear the whale sing of need-
lessness, sameness of self and sea, the will

awash in the sea it displaces. Life
crawls up these shores too surfeited to care.
A departure without a visit:
all creatures dry or finny being dreams of the whale...
a land where care displaces need.