Lightning Inside You - Hardcover

Bierhorst, John

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0688095828 ISBN 13: 9780688095826

Publisher: HarperCollins, 1992

Synopsis

Threads of seven colors are stretched on the great prairie.

What is it? It runs through the valleys clapping its hands.

"Rainbow" and "butterfly" are the answers to these two Native American riddles, typically drawn from the world of nature.

Long hidden from view, the American Indian riddling tradition is revealed in all its variety in this carefully researched collection -- the first of its kind -- presenting 140 riddles translated from twenty different languages, including Aztec, Comanche, Maya, Onondaga, Pawnee, and Quechua.

Here are examples of courtship riddling, hunter's riddling, dream-guessing, life-or-death riddling, and story riddling. In his introductory essay, editor John Bierhorst shows how such "games" are linked to the life and customs of the people who originated them. He also offers pointers to help non-Indian guessers come up with the right answers.

With sweeping strokes and deft touches of humor, Louise Brierley's illustrations capture the spirit of mystery and inventiveness characteristic of this most unusual, most unexpected of Native American traditions.

About this title

About the Author

John Bierhorst, author of many acclaimed works about Native American cultures, lives in West Shokan, New York.Z

Reviews

Grade 3 Up-- Central Alaska, southern Mexico, and western South America provide most of the riddles collected herein, with a few from three Great Plains tribes. In a brief but interesting introduction, Bierhorst discusses the riddle as a form and describes occasions on which they were used or functions they served in Native American culture. His book is, he says, the first such collection, for until recently it was believed that riddles did not exist in the Americas before European contact. Some of the selections given here hardly refute that belief, being as straightforward as a catechism (Q: ``What is it that eats raw meat?'' A: ``Jaguar''). Most, however, have the poetic compression and inversion proper to the genre. Brierley's amusing, attenuated black-and-white sketches are casual but carefully composed; like the riddle-form itself, they offer bits of the ordinary that readers see freshly through the riddle-lens. In addition to the 150 riddles, there is also an annotated source list and a descriptive index of the tribes cited. Important for Native American folkore collections, this book could be used by teachers to stimulate children's riddling efforts. -- Patricia Dooley, University of Washington, Seattle
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Incredible as it is, Native American riddles have never before been gathered together in a book; there's even been some scholarly doubt that native riddling traditions exist on this side of the Atlantic. Bierhorst puts such questions to rest with a harvest from dozens of North, South, and Central American peoples, sandwiched between an analytical introduction and a list of published sources (mostly journal articles). Like other translated riddles, many here seem alien or fragmentary (``You grab it, I grab it'': ``air''--Maya), though in several the humor is close to home (``Why does a dog have a curl in its tail?'' ``So fleas can loop the loop''--Cherokee). Answers at the bottom of each page allow for guessing; Brierley's small, stylized b&w illustrations add occasional clues. Unique. (Folklore. 8+) -- Copyright ©1992, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Edition details

• Publisher: HarperCollins
• Publication date: 1992
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0688095828
• ISBN 13: 9780688095826
• Binding: Hardcover
• Illustrator: Brierley Louise
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 104