Amazon.com: Tunkashila: From the Birth of Turtle Island to the Blood of Wounded Knee (9780312099282): Gerald Hausman: Books

Book Description

Publication Date: October 1993

The saga of native America, from creation through the Battle of Wounded Knee, is recreated in epic form incorporating dozens of stories and myths, complemented by illustrations by native American artists. By the author of Turtle Island Alphabet. 15,000 first printing.

#outer_postBodyPS { display: none; } #psGradient { display: none; } #psPlaceHolder { display: none; } #psExpand { display: none; } The saga of native America, from creation through the Battle of Wounded Knee, is recreated in epic form incorporating dozens of stories and myths, complemented by illustrations by native American artists. By the author of Turtle Island Alphabet. 15,000 first printing.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Nearly 70 tales from such diverse tribes as Creek, Navajo, Roanoke, Hopi, Lakota and Seminole are loosely strung together into a single epic in this disappointing effort by this popularizer of Indian culture. While not Native American himself, Hausman ( Turtle Island Alphabet ) traces his interest to the '30s when his mother, then an anthropology student, collected some of the tales used here. The bulk of them, however, Hausman culled from oral and more familiar published sources. Taken individually, some of the stories are well told. Particularly effective is "The Story of the Second Animal Council," in which beasts decide how to combat human encroachment, and "The Story of the White Deer Named Virginia Dare," an account from the Indian perspective of the first white child born in North America. The biggest flaw is at the very heart of Hausman's enterprise: his decision to synthesize myths from different traditions into a putatively linear narrative with little indication of each story's original context. Though the volume purports to give readers the history of North America through the eyes of its original inhabitants, it only provides a stereotyped, romanticized image. Line drawings.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

Hausman ( Turtle Island Alphabet , LJ 3/15/92) calls Tunkashila a "cultural translation" of Native American legends. He gathered these stories from many U.S. tribes and here ambitiously attempts to reinterpret them and create a sort of American Indian epic. The book begins with creation myths and ends with tales of Geronimo, The Ghost Dance, and Black Elk. The 70 stories are short and are recounted in a simplistic and stereotypically "Indian" style. Many may prefer to read these stories as originally told or written; it is not clear in Tunkashila which parts are Hausman's and which are traditional. While this book may be enjoyable for those interested in American Indian culture, others will be offended by Hausman's appropriation of this unique culture.
- Gwen Gregory, U.S. Courts Lib., Phoenix
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.

More About the Author

› Visit Amazon's Gerald Hausman Page

I am an inveterate storyteller, which is to say: I love to do it, am helpless not to do it, and I do it all the time, even when I am by myself there is an inner monologue going on in my head. This habit of privately roving around in the land of legends is something I've done for as long as I can remember. My mom worried about me when she saw that I spent too much time by myself. I would creep into a closet and close the door and in the silence of the darkness I would spin tales of all kinds. I was never lonely as a kid because I had the imagination of a wild thing, and I was content to play in the fields and valleys and secret caves of that imaginary world.