The Enchanted Moccasins and Other Native American Legends

by Henry Rowe Schoolcraft

At the beginning of the nineteenth century, Henry R. Schoolcraft immersed himself in the legends and lore of Native American Indians. For thirty years he lived among Indian tribes in the West and around the Great Lakes, where night after night he listened to master storytellers weave spellbinding tales around the dancing embers of lodge fires. Carefully chosen from the many legends Schoolcraft heard, this collection presents nineteen fables brimming with myth and magic. Originally part of the oral tradition and passed down to generations of Native American children, they have been lovingly written down to spark the imaginations of modern generations.
Open the pages of this collection and enter a world where moccasins dance under a mysterious spell...where a little boy sets a snare for the burning sun...and where an old Toad Woman dares to steal a baby. Filled with unforgettable adventures readers of every age will cherish, The Enchanted Moccasins and Other Native American Legends includes such stories as:
• Gray Eagle and His Five Brothers
• Leelinau, the Lost Daughter
• The Origin of the Robin
• The Winter Spirit and His Visitor 
• He of the Little Shell
• White Feather and the Six Giants
...and many others. Historically rich and exciting, this treasury opens new vistas onto ancient Indian lore.

Genres: Native Americans, History, Childrens

224 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1877

About the author

Henry Rowe Schoolcraft (March 28, 1793 – December 10, 1864) was an American geographer, geologist, and ethnologist, noted for his early studies of Native American cultures, as well as for his 1832 expedition to the source of the Mississippi River. He is also noted for his major six-volume study of American Indians in the 1850s.

He served as a United States Indian agent for a period beginning in 1822 in Michigan, where he married Jane Johnston, mixed-race daughter of a prominent Scotch-Irish fur trader and Ojibwa mother, herself a daughter of Ojibwa war chief Waubojeeg. She taught him the Ojibwe language and much about her maternal culture. They had several children, two of whom survived past childhood. She is now recognized as the first Native American literary writer in the United States.

In 1846 the widower Schoolcraft was commissioned by Congress for a major study, known as Indian Tribes of the United States, which was published in six volumes from 1851 to 1857. He married again in 1847, to Mary Howard, from a slaveholding family in South Carolina. In 1860 she published the bestselling The Black Gauntlet, an anti-Uncle Tom's Cabin novel.

Reviews

[Rose · Rating 3 out of 5]

A little slow.

[Margaret · Rating 5 out of 5]

Enjoyed learning a bit more about connectivity.

[Natalya · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nice reading! Both naive and wise stories of "simple" people.