Recovering the Word: Essays on Native American Literature

by Brian Swann, Arnold Krupat

Introduction / The editors -- When artifacts speak, what can they tell us? / Paul G. Zolbrod -- Anthologies and narrators / Dell Hymes -- Heidegger and the Aztecs : the poetics of knowing in pre-Hispanic Nahuatl poetry / Willard Gingerich -- Post-structuralism and oral literature / Arnold Krupat -- North American Indian mythography : editing texts for the printed page / Anthony Mattina -- Strategies in text and context : the hot pepper story / Joel Sherzer -- Pima heaven songs / Donald Bahr -- A note on translation and remarks on collaboration / Brian Swann -- Bluejay and his sister / M. Dale Kinkade -- Telling the tale : a performance analysis of a Hopi coyote story / Andrew Wiget -- The natural history of old man coyote / William Bright. Life and death in the Navajo coyote tales / Barre Toelken -- Wesucechak becomes a deer and steals language : an anecdotal linguistics concerning the Swampy Cree Trickster / Howard Norman -- How the bird that speaks Lakota earned a name / Julian Rice -- Traditional Osage naming ceremonies : entering the circle of being / Carter Revard -- Walking the world of the Popol Vuh / Dennis Tedlock -- Chief Seattle's speech(es) : American origins and European reception / Rudolph Kaiser -- Sam Blowsnake's confessions : Crashing thunder and the history of American Indian autobiography / H. David Brumble III -- On stereotypes / Duane Niatum -- Bringing home the fact : tradition and continuity in the imagination / Paula Gunn Allen -- Native American novels : homing in / William Bevis.

653 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1987

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.