Indian Tales

Jaime de Angulo drew on his forty years among the Pit River tribe of California to create the amalgam of fiction, folklore, tall tales, jokes, ceremonial ritual, and adventure that is Indian Tales. He first wrote these stories to entertain his children, borrowing freely from the worlds of the Pit, and also of the Miwok, Pomo, and Karok. Here are the adventures of Father Bear, Mother Antelope, the little boy Fox, and, of course, Old Man Coyote in a time when people and animals weren't so very far apart. The author's intent was not so much to render anthropologically faithful translations -- though they are here -- but to create a magical world through the power of storytelling while avoiding the shoals of the romantic and picturesque.