Amerindiana

• Published in: Canadian Review of American Studies
• Main Author: Maud, Ralph
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: University of Toronto Press Inc. (UTPress) 1983
• Subjects: Literature and Literary Theory; History; Cultural Studies; eskimo*
• Online Access: http://dx.doi.org/10.3138/cras-014-01-06; https://utpjournals.press/doi/pdf/10.3138/CRAS-014-01-06

H. David Brumble, III. An Annotated Bibliography of American Indian and Eskimo Autobiographies. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1981.178 + ix pp. Hugh A. Dempsey. Red Crow, Warrior Chief. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1980. 248 + viii pp. Dell Hymes. "In vain I tried to tell you ": Essays in Native American Ethnopoetics. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1981.402 + ix pp. Karl Kroeber, ed. Traditional Literatures of the American Indian : Texts and Interpretations. Lincoln : University of Nebraska Press, 1981. 162 + ix pp. Hymes and Kroeber are convincing in their prediction that, when North American Indian myth receives the same kind of care and attention that has been given to other oral traditions—ancient Greek, for instance—the mass of ethnographic texts will yield a corpus of rich and rewarding literature. Three of the six contributors to Traditional Literatures of the American Indian are professors of English, ready to apply the tools of their trade to this interdisciplinary study. They recognize that English departments have always stood for what the distinguished folklorist Alan Dundes has called "the exploration of the interrelation between... textures, text, and context." This, asserts Karl Kroeber in fellowship, "is, in fact, what literary criticism is all about" (p. 4). Thus, in the spirit of "New Criticism," he has invited co-workers to present texts and interpretations which indicate the advances recently made in this interesting field of scholarly endeavor.