Customer Reviews

Pitch Woman and Other Stories: The Oral Traditions of Coquelle Thompson, Upper Coquille Athabaskan Indian (Native Literatures of the Americas)

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Coquelle Thompson, one of the last speakers of the Upper Coquille Athabaskan language, served as consultant on that language for fully 50 years (meanwhile making a living as farmer, tribal policeman, teamster, and general rural handyman). Over the decades, ethnographers collected many stories from him. These range from short tales (almost jokes) to long, dramatic sagas. Most of the characters are animal powers, going through their deeds back when animals were people or during the time when the Transformers were turning them into the animals they are today. There is a whole rich religion in here, waiting to be abstracted in future.
William Seaburg has made a career of going with painstaking and meticulous care through the many unpublished ethnographic and historical accounts of Oregon Native Americans. Seaburg's work (he has done, or shared in, several previous works of this kind) is absolutely superb, and should be more widely recognized. Nothing could be more valuable to the human spirit than bringing out the tales of these now-nearly-vanished cultures; these stories might otherwise lie forever in oblivion. Seaburg and Lionel Youst have already brought out an absolutely wonderful biography: COQUELLE THOMPSON, ATHABASKAN WITNESS. It gives a really unique portrait of Native life in Oregon in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
Back in the 18th century, Johann Herder argued that every culture has unique and precious gifts for us all, and that none can be ignored if we want to appreciate humanity. Herder directly or indirectly inspired many ethnographers, but not nearly enough. I wish Herder's ideas and Seaburg's example would animate more scholars.