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The Jealous Potter

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Towards the end of "The Naked Man", the last volume of "Mythologies", a series that Levi-Strauss dedicated to following up on all the transformations of a single myth, which he calls "the Birdnester", throughout the indigenous cultures of the Americas, the author tackles a vexing question. Is it possible that his transformations have been defined so broadly that any myth at all can be considered a form of the Birdnester? His reply is that the native cultures of the Americas have another complex of myths which cannot be treated as simple variants of the Birdnester and which he therefore omitted from his study. Whereas the Birdnester myths present a theory of the origin of cooking fire, the myths in this other series present a theory of the origin of potter's fire. In the "Jealous Potter", Levi-Strauss finally presents this second group of myths. As always with Levi-Strauss, the reader is in for a fanstastic trip with innumerable insights into human cultures. One difficulty in reading Levi-Strauss: He mentions a a dazzling array of native groups and it is difficult to keep them all straight. I have found that the best solution is to consult the maps in John Bierhost's survey of American mythology. Here as elsewhere, Levi-Strauss's work provides a wide prospect of future studies. For example, one would like to know how the two complexes of myths are distributed in the Americas (and even beyond them). This would certainly shed light on cultural history of the Americas and the world.