Blackfoot Lodge Tales: The Story of a Prairie People - Hardcover

Grinnell, George Bird

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1582185077 ISBN 13: 9781582185071

Publisher: Digital Scanning, 2001

Synopsis

Over 100 years ago author George Bird Grinnell, editor of Forest and Stream, founder of the Audubon Society and an advisor to President Theodore Roosevelt, was a famed explorer, naturalist and pioneer conservationist. Keenly interested in the lifestyles and welfare of Native Americans, particularly the Blackfoot, Cheyenne and Pawnee, he journeyed westward during summers to hunt and explore with the Indians, and to study their rapidly vanishing culture. Blackfoot religion, philosophy, literature and ethics were all combined in the stories they told, and the Blackfoot storytellers relied on memory to convey the tales from one generation to the next. In Blackfoot Lodge Tales, Grinnell documents these stories as told to him by the Blackfoot, illustrating them with authentic Blackfoot drawings.

About this title

From the Inside Flap:

"The author’s observations of the social organization, daily life, and customs of [the Blackfoot] rounds out a singular book."—Los Angeles Times. "Grinnell’s book has stood the test of time as an important contribution to the history and ethnography of the Blackfeet."—Natural History.

"A classic collection of tales by a gifted storyteller and a lucid ethnographic description of the Blackfeet."—Studies in American Indian Literature.

This collection of powerful stories reveals the complex and wondrous world of the Blackfoot nation in the nineteenth century. The thirty tales transcribed by George Bird Grinnell provide an intimate look into Blackfoot culture and philosophy and remind us of tribal values to be upheld and taught. Classic tales of adventure speak of deeds accomplished, and cultural heroes roam across an arresting Native landscape of legend and history. Ancient stories, captured in oral tradition, cast the shadow of the Blackfoot people far into the past and provide foundation and meaning for their lives in the present. The final section of this book is an insightful overview of the history and culture of the Blackfoot Nation. First published in 1892, Blackfoot Lodge Tales is based on George Bird Grinnell’s personal interactions with the Blackfoot people.

A member of the Blackfeet Tribe and a historian, Thedis Berthelson Crowe provides an indigenous perspective of the Blackfoot Lodge Tales in her new introduction to this edition. Her great-great grandfather, William Russell, served as the Blackfoot interpreter for Grinnell.

About the Author:

George Bird Grinnell was a man of diverse talents editor, author, traveler, and scientist. Born in 1849, he became, by turn of the century, one of the best-known and most popular interpreters of the American Indian.

About this edition

• Publisher: Digital Scanning
• Publication date: 2001
• ISBN 10: 1582185077
• ISBN 13: 9781582185071
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 336