Charles F. Lummis

Charles F. Lummis's profound understanding of Indian and Spanish culture in the American Southwest is reflected in this collection of thirty-two myths centering around the Pueblo of Isleta on the Rio Grande. In adapting these traditional oral tales, Lummis drew on his experience of living at Isleta and his familiarity with the native language. originally published in 1894, Pueblo Indian Folk-Stories is as enchanting as ever. Seven elders seated around a campfire take turns telling about Antelope Boy. the fabled coyote, the man who married the moon, the snake-girls, the sobbing pine, the feathered barbers, the hero twins, the revengeful fawns, and other natural and supernatural entities. Beautifully wrought, these wisdom and initiation stories speak to all who have not lost their sense of wonder.

When young Charles Lummis heard about a job in the small town of Los Angeles more than a century ago, he walked all the way to it—across the plains, up Pike's Peak, down Devil's Gorge, through the Grand Canyon, over the desert. It was, by conservative estimate, one of the grandest hikes in American history. With no reason to be modest, Lummis called his "unpretentious" account of it "the wayside notes of a happy vagabonding."