Customer Reviews

Zuni Folk Tales (Forgotten Books)

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The introduction by J.W. Powell, Washington City, and November, 1901 is worth the price of the book alone. It sets the tone of what a Folk- tail is in this context and tells want Mr. Cushing is about to do. It also shows that some of the tails as with other collections are hybrids for native and Christian stories intertwined. Even those that are attributed to Gilgamesh were imported and corrupted.

The 33 tails collected from 1879 to 1884 are transcribed by Frank Hamilton Cushing a professional anthropologist who lived with the Zuñi pueblo people from 1879 to 1884. You may find these tales a bit more sophisticated than many of the other Indian folk tale collections.

The tales even though interesting and each with an ending moral will start to repeat a theme; each one has a poor schnook that is told not to do something or is tricked into doing something. That something is never explained to the schnook until it is too late. Some deal with the underworld, and many with talking animals.

33 tales collected by Mr. Powell between 1879 to 1884 when he was posted to the Zuni Pueblo in New Mexico working as a collector for the Bureau of American Ethnology. Mr. Powell was made an honorary member of the Zuni tribe.