The Mythology of Native North America

by David A. Leeming, Jake Page

Most North Americans experience mythology by way of translations of classical texts, and surprisingly few of us are familiar with Coyote, Spider Woman, Water Jar boy, Falling Sky Woman, or the epic of the Blessingway - to name just a few of the stories retold in this collection of significant myths of Native North America. David Leeming and Jake Page, building on the success of their Myths of the Female Divine and Myths of the Male Divine, have provided an introduction and commentary on seventy-two myths drawn from a variety of cultures and language groups. They honor the Native pantheons, cosmologies, heroes, and heroines first as cultural expressions, then as variations on other mythic narratives to which they may be related, and ultimately as expressions of the larger human experience of mythmaking.

Genres: Mythology, Native American, Fantasy

224 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1998

About the author

aka David Adams Leeming

Reviews

[Benjamin Thomas · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is sort of a text book, in some ways, about Native American Mythology. It certainly relayed many myths from widespread native American tribes and I enjoyed most of them pretty well. But there was also a lot of good explanation about the origins of the myths, how similar they were to many other world religions, and other pertanent facts. The book was a very good introduction for those that know little about this sort of mythology.

The book is written almost like it was a master's thesis--lots of references to other works, citing source material etc. Definitely a necessity for the acedemic environment for which I believe it was intended. The authors divide the myths into major themes such as creation, flood, the afterlife, etc. I was truly surprised to see the similarities to other world mythology including Greek/Roman, Norse, Hebrew, Egyptian, etc. Most of the actual stories involving the myths were fairly plain and simple but the last section that dealt with the heroes and monster killing was probably my favorite. I suppose I am always a sucker for action and adventure no matter what form it takes. Since the book didn't break down into just a bunch of stories like I was expecting, I found myself reading quite a bit of it in between novels. I now have a taste for what these myths are and where they came from and can appreciate the themes that are there. I'm glad to have read this book but I think overall I still prefer the more common, familiar mythology such as the Greek pantheon, perhaps because it is so familiar.

[David Melbie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Essential for the Mythology collection. Leeming has compiled a most eclectic set of myths from North America. Very impressive.

[Estela · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was searching for tales from Native American sources when I found this book. This book is a collection of stories from a wide variety of North American people. There are stories on creation, heroes, tricksters. This book is well researched and has lots of footnotes and sources for the stories. From a research point of view, this book meets that criteria well. However, I found the stories to be dry and without flavor to make them interesting. Many felt like a child speaking of his dreams, where none of the ideas really came together to make a complete tale. This may be anthropologically correct, but ultimately this was not the telling of the stories I'd hoped it would be.