The Inland Whale: Nine Stories Retold from California Indian Legends

by Theodora Kroeber, Karl Kroeber (Foreword by)

Nine tales, selected and retold here by anthropologist and author Theodora Kroeber for the adult general-interest reader. The new foreword by her son, Karl Kroeber, provides context about the author's methods and describes his own personal connection to the stories themselves.

Genres: Fiction, Fantasy, Mythology, Short Stories, Native American, Indigenous, Native Americans

216 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1963

About the author

Theodora Kroeber was an American writer and anthropologist, best known for her accounts of several Native Californian cultures. Born in Denver, Colorado, Kroeber grew up in the mining town of Telluride, and worked briefly as a nurse. She attended the University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley), for her undergraduate studies, graduating with a major in psychology in 1919, and received a master's degree from the same institution in 1920.
Married in 1920 and widowed in 1923, she began doctoral studies in anthropology at UC Berkeley. She met anthropologist Alfred Louis Kroeber during her studies, and married him in 1926. One of her two children with Kroeber was the writer Ursula K. Le Guin. The Kroebers traveled together to many of Alfred's field sites, including an archaeological dig in Peru, where Theodora worked cataloging specimens. On their return, Alfred encouraged Theodora to continue her graduate work, but she declined, feeling she had too many responsibilities.
Kroeber began writing professionally late in her life, after her children had grown up. She published The Inland Whale, a collection of translated Native Californian narratives in 1959. Two years later she published Ishi in Two Worlds, an account of Ishi, the last member of the Yahi people of Northern California, whom Alfred Kroeber had befriended and studied between 1911 and 1916. This volume sold widely and received high praise from contemporary reviewers. Retrospective reviews were more mixed, noting Kroeber's unflinching portrayal of Californian colonization but criticizing her perspective on Ishi's treatment.
Nine years after Alfred's death in 1960, Theodora Kroeber married artist John Quinn. Kroeber published several other works in her later years, including a collaboration with her daughter Ursula and a biography of Alfred Kroeber. She served as a regent of the University of California for a year before her death in 1979. She has been described as having influenced her husband's anthropological work, and as having inspired interest in indigenous culture through Ishi in Two Worlds. A 1989 biography stated that her "great strength was as an interpreter of one culture to another".

Reviews

[Sandra The Old Woman in a Van · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you are traveling through California and wish to educate yourself about the diversity of indigenous peoples this is the one volume you should read. The 9 included stories are curated and discussed by one of the most respected and respectful anthropologist experts, Theodora Kroeber. By reading these stories one can get a good perspective of the wide range of cultures inhabiting virtually every inch of California lands prior to the European/American invasions.

Not only that -- the stories are engaging, complex, and memorable. I rarely, these days, add a book to my permanent collection. Typically I pass my books along - but not this one. I may loan it out, but I'm keeping it, and will reread the stories often.

[Ferhora]

Przepełnione magią i miłością do natury oraz drugiego człowieka opowieści, w których to nie bogowie, lecz ludzie sprawują pieczę nad własnym losem, a świat tylko czeka, by obdarować ich mistyczną mocą, za którą czasem trzeba zapłacić wysoką cenę

[Valerie]

Dedication: "THIS BOOK is dedicated to the ancestors and descendants of its nine heroines."

CONTENTS:

I Foreword by Oliver La Farge.

[II Map of the 'Ancient Yurok World']

II Introduction (by the Author--or rather, as she explains in the last segment, the editor.)

STORIES:

I THE INLAND WHALE: In the title story a boy who is declared by the standards of his people to be a bastard (his parents are married, but the family doesn't approve or validate the marriage) rises to prominence with the help of the eponymous Inland Whale (also a bastard, who had been swept inland by a tsunami caused by people not dancing enough), and by extended family (notably his mother, paternal grandmother, and great-grandfather) who don't defy his maternal family's fiats--but find ways around them.

II LOON WOMAN: I found the horror involved in what is essentially a minor story of incest (unintentional, on the part of the brother) more than a little overblown. Even if one could justify murdering a young woman for deliberately soliciting incest, what possible justification could there be in slaughtering EVERY loon encountered? The incidents happened ONCE. There's no probability of them being repeated--even on a 'sins of the [mothers]' basis, since the 'Loon Woman' has no offspring. It's almost as if the tellers believed that the sinner would not stay dead. The elements of horror are not proportionate.

III BUTTERFLY MAN: The elements of this wish-fulfillment-fantasy=turned-nightmare story are not only intended to be minatory ('don't stray after extramarital affairs'). They're also intended to warn against failing to carry out rituals properly. The implication is that if the woman HAD obeyed orders, she could have simply contracted a new marriage, and might have lived 'happily ever after'.

IV DANCE MAD: This is more or less a geography lesson through dance. The 'World Map' depicted between the Foreword and the Introduction (Kroeber refers to it several times, but doesn't give a page #, so I'll cite it in the Table of Contents, to help readers find it) is a quite literally circumscribed space. The dancers retain a gaiety throughout. They don't suffer any ill effects (even exhaustion is prevented by occasional rest breaks). They learn quite a lot (including new sources of food--mostly salmon), and at the end of a year of (literal, by their standards) dancing around the world--and around the seasons, they arrive home, end the dance, and record their acquisitions. Probably this story was accompanied by a (shorter) dance in the telling.

V LOVE CHARM: Although Kroeber argues that there's equity between the roles of women and men among the peoples of Alta California sampled in this book, it's evident that in courting, men are prescriptively supposed to take the initiative, even if the women are presented as being able to evoke responses in the men. I should note that although men are expected to take the initiative in marriage, they are not allowed to remain unmarried. There are few bachelor men in these stories, though there are several unmated women.

VI UMAI: Several of these stories have common elements. In this and the next story, the notion that there's a place where the sky quite literally collides with the ocean, creating and subject to waves is developed in more or less the same words. With the right timing (remember to catch the TWELFTH wave), it's possible to get past the collision zone, and into the Ocean beyond The World, and to the Land beyond The World, where there are nightly dances.

VII ABOUT-THE-HOUSE-GIRL: This involves the process of an arranged marriage, which comes into being rather despite than because of people's planning (with the possible exception of the wife). I found the two women who want to marry the Flute player more than a little extraneous: I wonder if they're from another story, maybe? One amusing element is that the Flute player is able to find the woman he wants because of his greed for dried seaweed, prepared by the 'girl's' aunt.

VIII TESILYA, SUN'S DAUGHTER: Kroeber's editorial alterations are most noteworthy in this story. In the explanatory sections in the second half of the book, Kroeber explains that she's combined several characters to form the Sun's Daughter--but she thinks this is justified because she thinks the story once DID have only one wife/mother. One amusing element is that the story begins explaining why little is known about the women in the story by saying (with a sidewise wink) that it's not necessary to know about women's lives, which are not interesting. In fact, in this story, the woman is the MOST developed character. The men are often so generic that if their names were not given, it'd be difficult to tell them apart. Even the villain isn't very thoroughly described. His motivations are essentially causeless.

I should say that this story encourages blood-feud--so if it weren't for the female character, it would be pretty deplorable.

VII THE MAN'S WIFE: Most cultures of Alta California enforced a very strong division between the living and the dead. It was strongly required not even to TALK about the dead. This somewhat Orphean story is of a man who refuses to accept that his wife no longer has any place in his life, and stalks her on her journey to the Land of The Dead. Kroeber explains that there are many versions of this story, most of which end up with the man being unable to bring his dead wife back--mostly because he violates the terms of the return. What becomes of him also varies. It's not clear whether, if he had suicided, he would have been able to reunite with his wife in the Land of The Dead, either.

SECTION II: METHODOLOGY

A: SOME QUALITIES OF INDIAN STORIES: Theodora Kroeber was the wife of the anthropologist AL Kroeber. The Kroebers were disciples of Boasian anthropology, but because most of their work was done in the early 20th century, they were more than a little handicapped by earlier vocabularies. Thus Theodora uses words like 'primitive' to describe societies that were (nearly) contemporary with her own. She speaks of people who had stable lives, which they believed had always been the same, and always would be: but these people had been subject to major disruptions, which (in their opinions and in the opinions of many observers) substantially reduced the quality of their lives. It's not surprising that there's a strong element of nostalgia in many of these stories. This section contains several maps of Alta California, showing the locations of the tribal territories of the main peoples sampled for this book.

I should say that I think the eternal unchangingness of the people's lives was probably largely imaginary (aspirational, at best). Many of the peoples eat corn, for example, which is an import from South America. Probably there was extensive trading with various Mesoamerican societies over time. And of course, since humans originated in Africa, the 'eternal' timescape of the legends is almost certainly not more than a few tens of thousands of years--long when measured against human lifespans, but far from endless.

B ABOUT THE STORIES IN THIS BOOK: This is Kroeber's explanation of how she edited and otherwise altered the stories. The original stories were oral, and therefore contained a lot of redundancy--essential in oral stories, to keep the elements clear in people's minds over long storytelling sessions, but more than a little tiresome in a written version, where the reader can just turn the page back to check on something forgotten.

In addition, Kroeber chose elements from several different versions of particular stories. She tended to pick elements which were most widespread: but she also edited out large sections she felt detracted from the narrative, and often combined elements from different stories which were related, but not technically the same story.

She did this to increase the literary elements. She describes what type of literature the original stories most resembled (sometimes, I suspect, she tended to overstate the resemblance). The main reason for her edits, I suspect, was to change the elements from literal transcriptions of storytelling sessions into sensible narrative plots in 'Western' tradition.

She may be doing them a disservice--but she's also translating them for a wider audience. Few people, probably, are going to go back to the original recordings, transcripts, etc (in the original languages, few of which survive intact). For the rest, these versions give an idea and sampler of the kinds of stories once told repeatedly by master storytellers (of which there are few left).

APPENDIX: SOURCES.

This is a bibliography of the original collectors of written and recorded versions of these stories. People with anthropological backgrounds will find many of the names familiar (notably, AL Kroeber himself, and also Edward Sapir, the linguist behind the Sapir-Whorff Hypothesis) Theodora Kroeber also mentions several informants who have tried to retain and restore the old bardic traditions of various tribes, and explains their methods, as well.

One note about the illustrations: they're mostly pretty sketchy. They might, indeed, have come from sketchbooks of the illustrator, Joseph Crivy. I don't know whether Crivy also drew the maps, but I suspect if they'd come from somebody else, there'd be a different credit for that.

Later editions have different illustrators (except, probably, for the cover drawing). Later editions also include a foreword by Theodora Kroeber's son Karl, rather than Oliver La Farge.

All in all, a good effort to highlight the female characters of stories that too often develop an 'another planet without women' air.

[Greta · Rating 5 out of 5]

Theodora Kroeber does a great job of presenting, then explaining several native American stories from northern California. This collection is pleasant to hear and to read. I really enjoyed this book.

[Toby Buchan · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Reading the Greek and Yokuts stories, who is to call whom primitive? The raw material from which are spun the the tales that live to be told and retold to children and grandchildren is usually primitive in that it is the concretization of something arising from the unconcscious: a love, a hate, a longing, a fear, a question. And if the tale is so well spun that the love is realized, the hate avenged or dispersed, the longing assuaged, the fear generalized and shared, or the question answered, then the author, the teller, and the audience, whether Yokuts or Greek or modern American, are functioning on a level not primitive nor necessarily sophisticated, but wholly human, which functioning I take to be an early aspect of art."

[Maria Longley · Rating 4 out of 5]

Here we get a retelling of nine stories from the Native Americans who lived in the California area, nine tales that are delightful to read as they are well written, engaging, and full of life. The foreword in my book by Oliver La Farge is hideous but that is easily skipped over. At the end there is a little discussion about each tale which is also really interesting, that provides a bit more context and explanation for the stories. Told with much respect.

[Glen · Rating 3 out of 5]

There is a helpful, short introductory essay and a longer, more in-depth scholarly essay that bookend these 9 tales drawn from the original inhabitants of California (mostly from the north). Aficionados of mythology and folklore from whatever part of the globe will doubtless find much here on which to whet their appetite. There are cheerful stories, scary stories, romantic stories, and some just plain weird ones. The concluding essay does a nice job of situating these stories both geographically and in terms of their place in literature.

[Oliver · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nice retelling of some Californian folklore with a clear and respectful voice.

[Evan Walters · Rating 4 out of 5]

v interesting to read abt native american indian folk stories and especially to see the parallels they have with myths from other cultures

[Kennedy · Rating 3 out of 5]

theodora kroeber is a lovely storyteller

[Mary · Rating 3 out of 5]

very interesting native American stories from California---some quite emotional in their understatement.

[Rita · Rating 4 out of 5]

Amazing book. So glad Rosemary shared it with me.
1959. Forward by Oliver La Farge.
What a perceptive and culturally sensitive person Kroeber is! The stories were easy to read, even though some of the behavior and thinking seemed foreign [as one would expect]. I can hardly imagine better retellings of the stories than Kroeber has created, and she succeeded admirably in her goals as she stated them:

"The plots and persons are the stories' own, but in my retelling the focus of interest changes....We are less interested in the routes they traversed and in the exploits of their heroes than were the Indians, and more interested in the character and personality of the hero or his wife or an old uncle....My objective has been to transmit in some measure the sense of poetry and drama which these tales held for their own people....The alien reader must be given enough background fact so that motivation and behavior are understood."

I hope to read her book of Ishi's story, and see the films as well.

Kroeber's [second] husband was the anthropologist Alfred Kroeber [1876 –1960], and some versions of the stories she retells were 'collected' by him.

Kroeber (1897–1979) studied anthropology and met and married Alfred Louis Kroeber, one of the leading American anthropologists of his generation and himself a widower. After his death, Theodora Kroeber wrote his biography. They had two children, writer Ursula K. Le Guin and English professor Karl Kroeber.

Two movies were made based on her account of Ishi:
Ishi: The Last of His Tribe (1978) and
The Last of His Tribe (1992).
[[Alfred Kroeber provided detailed information about Ishi, the last surviving member of the Yana people, whom he studied over a period of years.]]

The Inland Whale. 1959. Indiana University Press, Bloomington.
Ishi in Two Worlds. Berkley Books.
Ishi: The Last of His Tribe. 1964. Parnassus Press, Berkeley, California.
(with Robert F. Heizer) Almost Ancestors: The First Californians. 1968. Sierra Club Books, San Francisco.
Alfred Kroeber: A Personal Configuration. 1970. University of California Press, Berkeley.

[Ushan · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book retells nine legends of California Indians, and gives endnotes as large as the text of the legends themselves. The composers of the legends had no agriculture; however, the Yurok of lower Klamath River valley had social stratification, money in the form of seashells, and even slavery (in the first legend, the hero's low-born father offers to be his high-born mother's father's slave). My favorite is a variant of the story of Orpheus and Eurydice told by the Yokuts and Western Mono people of the San Joaquin Valley and western slopes of the Sierra Nevada. In the ancient Greek version of the story, the husband is about to recover his wife from the underworld when he looks at her and she disappears forever; in the Native American version, she disappears when he tries to have sex with her, which was really the reason he wanted to bring her back from the dead. I must say that the Native American version rings more true to me.

[Beth · Rating 5 out of 5]

Absolutely engaging. Nine stories, each different and each powerful, from nine of the 21 different nations (and language groups) who once inhabited California.
The introduction (by Oliver La Farge) shouts prejudice against Native Americans as he condescendingly writes: "The literary value of a great deal of primitive literature, whether myths or tales, is nil." (He even italicized the word 'nil' as if we might not get his point.) And if that isn't enough, he goes on to say: "In my limited experience, I know of no body of such literature of which these depressing generalizations are more true than they are of the enormous mass of stories of all kinds . . . by the tribes and tribelets of California." And this from a man who won the Pulitzer prize for his book "Laughing Boy." What an a****le!!!
Kroeber's only mistake in this work was asking La Farge to write the foreword.

[Mike S · Rating 4 out of 5]

I liked the book in general, there are some very interesting stories that give us a good look at the culture, and the verbal tradition of the Western American Indians. I wouldn't have included all of the stories that were picked, but in general the book accomplished what it set out to do.

[Tony Derricott]

Recommended by Susan Aylworth
(wife of MormonTimes.com columnist Roger H. Aylworth)

[Jessica · Rating 3 out of 5]

I don't enjoy short stories collections very much, but I love reading folklore and myth. These were stories I'd never heard and they were well told. Quick read.

[Sarah Koz · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ursula K Le Guin's mom is a boss.