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The Mythology of the Wichita
Foreword by Elizabeth A.H. John
Published by: University of Oklahoma Press
Imprint: University of Oklahoma Press
370 Pages | 6 x 9
$24.95
First published in 1904, George A. Dorsey’s Mythology of the Wichita is a rich collection of American Indian folklore. WIth the help of a Wichita interpreter, Dorsey gathered sixty tales from the Wichitas living in Oklahoma and arranged them according to the first period, the creation; the second period, transformation; and the third period, the present.
For the Wichitas, tale-telling was of great instructional value for the young. The tales taught that braverly and greatness depended upon individual effort, no matter how low or mean might have been the individual’s origin, and at the same time, that there might descend upon the child the same longevity and good fortune possessed by the hero of the tale.
George A. Dorsey was a curator of anthropology in the Field Museum of Natural History at Chicago and the author of Traditions of the Skidi Pawnee, Tradition of the Osage, and Pawnee Mythology, among other works.
Elizabeth A.H. John, of Austin, Texas, is an independent historian engaged in research and writing, consultation, and lectures. Her primary interests lie in the history of the American Indian, the Hispanic Borderlands, and the interplay of Indian and European cultures. She has taught at Sacramento State University and at the University of Oklahoma, where she received her doctorate in history. She is the author of Storms Brewed in Other Men's Worlds: The Confrontation of Indians, Spanish, and French in the Southwest, 1540-1795 and numerous articles on Indian topics. She is the editor of José Cortés's Views from the Apache Frontier: Report on the Northern Provinces of New Spain, 1799 (University of Oklahoma Press).