Tim McNeese, editor
Myths of Native America

Myths of Native America is an attempt not at comprehensiveness but at representation, not at cataloguing but at inclusiveness. Standing a full 120 stories tall, it is a carefully chosen compendium of folklore by a historian of early America.

Myths of Native America is drawn from the work of early American chroniclers who preserved the oral legends of eight tribal regions including those of the Algonquin, Apache, Cherokee, Iroquois, Navajo, Zuni, Haida, Seminole and Sioux natives. Creation myths, love stories, the liminal narratives of young warriors, and tales reminiscent of Aesop's fables together present a pre-Columbian world of vast and varied cultures reflecting on their experiences before the arrival of monarchy, real estate, and Christianity. Here is the story of a Prometheus figure who steals fire from the gods, a werewolf tale, a maiden-and-frog story with a twist, and a landscape of characters peppered with portraits of village idiots, medicine men, and tribal chiefs.

Editor Tim McNeese shows us a world unlike the one we experience today: a world in which the firmament is a source of comfort rather than fear; a world in which animals assist rather than attack; a world in which the gods commune with men and mingle among them in fantastic forms. For anyone who wants to know what this continent was thinking before Columbus, the conquistadors and Sir Walter Raleigh got here, Myths of Native America is the most authentic narrative guide of its kind.

Tim McNeese is associate professor of history at York College in Nebraska. His specialty is early America.