Finding the Center: The Art of the Zuni Storyteller

by Dennis Tedlock (Translator), Andrew Peynetsa, Walter Sanchez

This second edition features three new Zuni stories, updated transcriptions of stories from the original edition, a bibliography, and a new preface and introduction.

Genres: Native American, Anthropology, Religion

337 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1978

About the author

Dennis Ernest Tedlock was the McNulty Professor of English and Research Professor of Anthropology at the State University of New York at Buffalo. He received his Ph.D. in 1968 from Tulane University.

Reviews

[Matt Ambs]

Zuni stories translated from actual Zuni performances. However, it is hard to say how much these stories have been reconstructed to fit Western ideologies.... hmm...

[Will Lashley · Rating 4 out of 5]

The year after this book was published I became the late Dennis Tedlock’s student. Dennis was raised in New Mexico, son of an archaeologist at the university there and he had the quiet & reflective Southwestern air of an individualist who dressed and walked like was ready to set out on a long ramble through the desert. His wife Barbara and Dennis were charming and not a little exotic: Both of them had already begun studying to become shamans, a real departure in those days from the “objective” scientific investigation of culture that defined the academic discipline. They also had me over for some great dinner parties. 



Dennis’ philosophical bent was epistemological interrogation twinned with what I’ve since come to call somatic knowledge, a reliance on the rightness and receptiveness of bodily sensation. His first book took on the task of enlarging on the “text” of storytelling with diacritical typographic styles - using line breaks, capitalisation, phonetic suggestion and other methods to render the stories he translated from his Zuni storytelling “informants” and to capture some of the subtlety and dynamism of their oral performances. The result on the page was akin to concrete poetry but the intent was to ground the stories in the “now” of their telling. In those years, Tedlock and the poet Jerome Rothenberg were melding the study of anthropology, translation and oral poetry into what they helped to name “ethnopoetics”, especially through Tedlock’s founding of the journal Alcheringa.

Tedlock went on to become best known as a Mayanist and as a founder of dialogic anthropology, an academic sub-discipline borrowing from the linguistic and critical theories of the Russian literary critic Mikhail Bakhtin and his book of articles “The Dialogic Imagination” (1981). Dialogic anthropology stresses the contextual exchanges between the informant and the anthropologist as a “conversational” encounter where cultural keys are revealed in the course of negotiating an 'in-between' or new integrated context or 'cultural reality'.


The kernels of all that are here in this book…and some good yarns, too. It is a “good read” in addition to being a thought provoking precursor to so many other books. Dennis Tedlock died June 3rd, 2016. I highly recommend any number of his books, and those of his still lively widow, Barbara Tedlock, who has written extensively on the cross cultural interpretation of dreams and her shamanic initiation from a feminine perspective. See especially her book on the female roots of shamanism, "The Woman in a Shaman's Body.”

[Israel · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm wondering what was lost when these oral histories were translated AND written down. What exact facial expression, tones of voice, movement, intended audiences, time of day/month etc. (other factors). where considered when saying these oral histories in the original language. Dr. Tedlock goes into some of these factors but a part of me feels sorrow. The work feels incomplete. The missing parts are what remains in the original language and the original oral practice, not on paper. There needs to be other ways to keep these histories alive while remaining true to the original meaning and intent of the history.

Like having these narratives told by the zuni indians themselves in their own format. It's tricky.

[Lisa Montgomery · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book beautifully combines poetry and folk narrative.
The book was meant for adult readers, but several of the stories could be used by teachers for a multi-cultural lesson taught in poetic renderings.

[Mark Beeman · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a challenging read for me because of the format. However, this book was also an engaging and intriguing read for the same reason. Storytelling with a nice feel for cadence and rhythm. I enjoyed it once I slowed down and felt the stories.

[in8 · Rating 4 out of 5]

engaged w/ here: https://5cense.com/24/1159.htm

[Liz · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a fantastic telling of some Zuni folktales and the Zuni creation myth cycle. Though I haven't witnessed any Zuni storytelling, the style seemed authentic to the oral tradition. Captivating, and definitely worth reading.

[John Solder · Rating 5 out of 5]

Longer stories but full of color, mystery, and insight. provides a good understand of story telling style of the Southwestern Indians.

[Keara · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was a student of Dennis Tedlock for two semesters, interesting man, stories are extremely authentic.