Myths and Legends of California and the Old Southwest

Project GutenbergProject Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

Rating 3.5

Word count: 175K words
Chapters: 18

Summary

Project Gutenberg was the first provider of free electronic books, or eBooks. Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, invented eBooks in 1971 and his memory continues to inspire the creation of eBooks and related technologies today.Myths and Legends of California and the Old Southwest by Katharine Berry JudsonAuthor: ,Language: English, Class: E011: History: America: America, Release Date: Feb 1, 2001

Editor's review

This collection gathers Native American myths and legends of California and the Old Southwest, offering direct access to the oral traditions and regional cultures of North America's indigenous peoples. The stories revolve around natural phenomena, animal characters, and creation concepts; their narration is concise and carries a distinct oral rhythm, making the book useful supplementary material for folklore and American history research. For general readers it provides a folk perspective on the layered cultures of the American West and can be read alongside local history and Native American studies. As a public-domain ebook, the text is easily available and suits classroom selections, reference reading, or background reading before and after travel. Note that these legends were transcribed by early recorders; readers should stay alert to that recording context and not treat the text as unmediated, pristine material.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Researchers and students of folklore and Native American culture
Readers interested in the local history and oral literature of the American West
Teachers seeking English public-domain texts for classroom reading
Travelers who want cultural background on California and the Southwest before a trip

Not a good fit for

Rigorous researchers expecting a systematically annotated and text-critically verified edition
Readers who prefer long, continuous narratives or the pace of modern fiction
Readers who need a Chinese translation and are not comfortable with the English original

Reading tips

Read by geographic region, using a map to understand the spatial background of the stories' transmission.
Begin with introductory background material before the legends themselves, and note the recorder's perspective.
Read alongside oral histories from the same regions and compare narrative differences.
Read two or three pieces at a time and note story motifs for cross-comparison.

About the publisher

Project Gutenberg United States · Founded in 1971

Project Gutenberg is a digital publishing project focused on public-domain ebooks. Its publishing direction centers on classic literary works whose copyright has expired, covering genres such as poetry, drama, fiction, and epic. Representative books include Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge, Proust's Du côté de chez Swann, Shakespeare's Macbeth and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Homer's The Iliad, Dante's La Divina Comèdia: Purgatòri, Cervantes's The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, and Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. Its author resources consist mainly of classic Western writers such as Wordsworth, Proust, Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Cervantes, Grahame, and Tolstoy. Its publishing feature is the provision of freely accessible ebooks in EPUB and Kindle formats; it is not a traditional publisher, and publicly available information is limited.

FAQ

Is this book suitable for readers with no background in folklore?

Yes. The stories themselves are simply told and accessible; but there are no annotations, so readers who want a deeper grasp of the cultural context need to supplement with basic material on Native American history and folklore, or read alongside relevant scholarship.

Do the legends share a uniform narrative style?

No. They come from different regions and peoples and were transcribed by early recorders; lengths and modes of narration vary, some close to animal fables, others concerned with creation and explanations of nature. Read them as individual pieces rather than expecting a uniform structure.

What should I keep in mind when reading the electronic edition?

Public-domain ebooks usually preserve the original transcription and may lack modern editorial notes and textual collation. Note period differences in spelling and place names, and verify important quotations against other editions or relevant scholarship.

This site is an index: you start “Search all sources” in your browser, and the entries it lists all point to third-party sites; please judge their availability yourself.

About the author

Project Gutenberg Author

Project Gutenberg is not a single author but a nonprofit digital library founded by Michael Hart in 1971 and one of the world's earliest free ebook platforms. It relies on volunteers to digitize, proofread, and freely distribute public-domain works and is now operated by the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Its collection contains 2,692 works, mainly religious texts, epics, and story collections, including the King James Bible and the Douay-Rheims volumes, the epic Mahabharata, a literal translation of the Arabian Nights, and Danish editions of the Old and New Testaments. Public information is limited, and its nature is closer to a public-interest compiling and dissemination body; these texts are open to the public, easy to consult and circulate, and have had a profound influence on the spread of ebooks and the preservation of public-domain resources.