Imagine Ourselves Richly: Mythic Narratives of the North American Indians

"Indian stories can help us extend our concept of who we are," contends author Vecsey, thus removing Native American religious traditions from the fantastical "other" to the rich contextual importance of contemporary living religions. This is an introduction to the various ways of understanding mythology and a resource for the study of North American Indian traditions. It describes and then employs the principal means of myth analysis in interpreting a sequence of myths and rituals from Indians across North America. Spanning a range of mythological possibilities and of American Indian culture areas, the myths and rituals treated here include the Hopi myth of emergence and clan migrations, the Ojibwa creation myth, the Iroquois myth of the Confederacy, the Navajo "Orpheus" tradition, the numerous pan-Indian myths (or monomyth) of peyotism's origins, and, finally, a contemporary sweat lodge ceremony. As the title suggests, Imagine Ourselves Richly treats these myths and rituals not only as clues to Indian identity and methods of survival but as a legacy of the spirit for us all. "The lessons they teach," says Vecsey, "community harmony, natural reciprocity, realism in facing death, yet hope and striving to better the human condition, a laughing sense of life's absurdity, and yet acceptance despite it all--these are healthy, eminently health-promoting ideas that we can hardly afford to ignore." At the heart of the grand corpus of Indian stories the author finds a triple declaration of dependence: of the individual on the community, of the community on nature, and of nature on the ultimately powerful world of spirit. "Studies the major mythological traditions of Native Americans, including Hopis, Ojibwas, Iroquois, Navajos, Creeks, and peyote religion, using myth analysis to understand the identities, survival methods, and spirituality of Native American people"--Amazon.com.