Coming to Light: Contemporary Translations of the Native Literatures of North America

by Brian Swann

A richly diverse anthology of Native American literature draws on the work of more than 200 tribes across the United States and Canada, providing information on the historical and cultural contexts of the stories, songs, prayers, and orations.

Genres: Native American, Mythology, History, Anthologies, Nonfiction, Folklore, Poetry

848 pages, Paperback

First published February 28, 1994

About the author

Brian Swann was born in Tyneside, England. He received a BA and an MA from Queens’ College, Cambridge, as well as a PhD from Princeton University.

Swann teaches at the Cooper Union and lives in New York City.

Reviews

[Peter Crofts · Rating 5 out of 5]

In my opinion this is THE text to get ahold of if you want to take a look at First Nations' myth and stories. The reason is simple, it is chiefly the work of anthropologists and there is an academic rigor on display that some other texts, like Erdoes' compilation, simply do not offer.

Most all of the tales are organized on the page the way they were told. What I mean by this is that they are not warped into paragraphs of paraphrase but follow the line by line retelling, with the line breaks representing the pauses to take a breath, of the various oral storytellers. That may not sound like much but it is, since it, at least for me, produces a very different feeling than reading paraphrased renditions.

I can't recommend this book enough, it is a work of love and deep respect.

[Javier Girona · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book by Brian Swann has been a wonderful experience to read. The author manages to collect stories from all North America, from Alaska to New Mexico, and introduces each story with a very helpful narrative, explaining about its content, how it was collected, translated, the symbology of the story, some of its mythological characters, adding to the story a background that in many cases helps to understand the story. Besides, the author provides an overview of how people behave, lived, thought...
Anyone interested in world mythology, anthropology or even subjects such as psychology or history, would enjoy reading this book. Some of the stories' introductions also tell how the stories were told, who did explain them or how the stories should be read. It is of course an academic book, so for me, who I am mainly interested in human behaviour and human thought, I found some parts not interesting, mainly because wasn't focussed into a deep study of this specific subject.
Nevertheless, from a human behaviour and human thought point of view, this book definitely helps to understand human basic thinking patterns, how Native Americans understood the world around them and it can be applied to contemporary society, like for example to understand what happened in the USA with Europeans arrival, how much was lost, or how non monotheistic societies interpreted the world around them.
It is beautiful and excellent some of the stories, to be compared to great authors such as Homer, or stories such as The Gilgamesh epic. Provably Carl Jung would have enjoyed reading those stories that in many cases seem to be taken from dreams. Really recommended reading.

[WESCAC · Rating 5 out of 5]

A thing to savour. Wonderful pieces of literature, with useful introductions from each translator, covering a wide breadth of cultures. The Yupik tales were favourites.

[Renate Kinscheck · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm still in the process of reading this. I was despairing of finding meaning in many of the stories and songs, but finally I came upon “Running the Deer Songs," which I found beautiful and poetic. There's so much involved: partly it's from the point of view of a deer who is being hunted, who is described as “flower fawn’s flower dust” and later, “person’s flower body.” The deer does not want to die. and he too talks about his death “in an enchanted way.”

[Wetdryvac · Rating 5 out of 5]

A lovely collection, with the occasional weird academic snoot - but since I'm used to that from Kipling and Yates, I'll live. The stories themselves are utterly lovely.