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Nebraska
Press Series 1
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Traditional Narratives
of the Arikara Indians
(2 Audiocassettes)
Douglas R. Parks, Cloth: 1991,,,CIP.LC
90-12889,0-8032-3697-2
Studies in the Anthropology
of North American Indians Series
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Until the late eighteenth century
the Arikaras were one of the largest and most influential
Indian groups on the northern plains. For centuries
they have lived along the Missouri River, first in present
South Dakota, later in what is now North Dakota. Today
they share the Fort Berthold Indian Reservation in North
Dakota with the Mandans and Hidatsas. Although their
postcontact history and aspects of their culture are
well documented, Douglas R. Parks's monumental four-volume
work Traditional Narratives of the Arikara Indians represents
the first comprehensive attempt to describe and record
their language and literary traditions. Volumes 1 and
2 present transcriptions of 156 oral narratives in Arikara
and include literal interlinear English translations.
Volumes 3 and 4 contain free English translations of
those narratives, making available for the first time
a broad, representative group of Arikara oral traditions
that will be invaluable not only to anthropologists
and folklorists but to everyone interested in American
Indian life and literature. The narratives cover the
entire range of traditional stories found in the historical
and literary tradition of the Arikara people, who classify
their stories into two categories, true stories and
tales. Here are myths of ancient times, legends of power
bestowed, historical narratives, and narratives of mysterious
incidents that affirm the existence today of supernatural
power in the world, along with tales of the trickster
Coyote and stories of the risque Stuwi and various other
animals. In addition, there are accounts of Arikara
ritualism: prayers and descriptions of how personal
names are bestowed and how the Death Feast originated.
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