Preface

Part I: The Analyses
1. Background of the Study
2. Descriptive Summary of the Collection
3. Structure and Content of the Narratives

Part II: Narratives
A. The Three Worlds
B. Old Woman Momoy
C. Coyote's Life and Times
D. Still More Myths
E. Shamans and Other Phenomena
F. Good Stories Retold

Appendix
Glossary
Bibliography

"These tales are tales both stranger and familiar. . . . they are a fascinating introduction to a complex, little-known, lost people."—World Literature Today

"Only two Chumash texts were known before this publication of 111 myths, folk tales, and stories collected by John Peabody Harrington between 1912 and 1928. The texts range from aboriginal narratives centering on Old Man Coyote to nineteenth-century tales borrowed from Mexico."—Pacific Historical Review

"Thomas Blackburn, among the first and most assiduous of the seekers through Harrington's materials, has published here the main body of oral literature that Harrington collected from the Chumash of Santa Barbara and Ventura Counties. Blackburn has done much more: he has added to the 111 stories a commentary and analysis...Not only California specialists but also those interested in mythology and oral traditions will find this book invaluable. . . . The stories are good enough, moreover, to stand on their own as contributions to world literature."—Journal of California Anthropology

"The informants are identified and show in photographs, emerging to remind us how accelerated was the fate of the Chumash; by 1834, the secularization of the missions, they had suffered dispossession of their lands, epidemics, deliberate abortion and a virtual blotting out of their culture. By 1860, when interest in them slowly but belatedly began, there were only a handful of scattered survivors. The handful of informants for these stories were born from 1804-1877, a half-dozen men and women...The narratives take up more than half the book—111 of them, some as short as a paragraph, mere bits and pieces, others long enough to take two or three day in telling. . . . Whatever else they may be, cognitively or psychologically, they are also entertaining."—Los Angeles Times

"Blackburn's analysis of the structure and meaning of these oral narratives along with the translations of them is a remarkable peeling away of layer after layer of what and why the Chumash thought as they did. Assuming that folklore is much more than storytelling, Blackburn shows the relationship of Chumash oral narratives to all aspects of their culture...it captures the beliefs, the good times, the bad times, and the creative genius of the Chumash Indians."—Westways