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NATIVE IMAGES EDITIONS
The Maidu Creation Myth
VOLUME I 2002: THE
CREATION AS THE MAIDU TOLD IT - pu'ktim
This is the first of four
volumes that will encompass the whole Creation Myth of the Mountain
Maidu, an important endeavor for both William Shipley and myself
because of our shared interest in the indigenous cultures of
pre-conquest California.
-Daniel Stolpe
VOLUME II 2003:
THE ADVERSARIES -
hompajtotokyc'om
This
myth, The Adversaries, is the second of four volumes which tell
the story of the Maidu Creation. It is presumptuous for us to
speculate on the Maidu world-view which, before the disaster
of the nineteenth century, must have been the social setting
for this tale. Earthmaker and Coyote struggle for control. Coyote
wins out in the end, thus becoming the architect of what the
human condition is to be like.
VOLUME III 2004 :
LOVE AND DEATH-
hyby'ym masy wonom
This myth, Love and Death,
is the third of four volumes which, together, tell the story of
the Maidu creation. Unlike many sacred myths from
other parts of the world, the story is noncommittal with regard
to what is "good" and what is "bad". Though
Coyote emerges as the victor
in the clash of wills with Earthmaker by bringing both love and
death to the center of the human experience, in the end his triumph
bears
bitter fruit.
VOLUME IV 2005: COYOTE THE SPOILER - wépam wasatikym
In this, the fourth and final part of the Mountian Maidu creation myth, Earthmaker continues to bring about a world based on his own views of what is best for human beings and all living things. Only at the very end, when Earthmaker really seems to be content with how the world that he and Coyote have created is secured, does he disappear Eastwards, inadevertently leaving his adversary with the last say about how things will be.
This
account of the Creation is that of the Mountain Maidu people of
Northeastern California. For untold centuries, they lived in village
communities scattered through many beautiful mountain meadows
at the north end of the Sierra Nevada, just south of Mount Lassen,
the southernmost peak in the Cascade Range. Though their
numbers were cruelly reduced and their way of life violently disrupted
by the arrival of Euro American invaders in the mid-nineteenth
century, they have clung valiantly to their innate wisdom and
to the fundamental values of their traditional society.
In the early 1950's, I was a graduate student in Linguistics in
the University of California at Berkeley. I spent several years,
mainly the summers of 1955 and 1956, living in Maiduland
and studying the language with Maym Gallagher, a brilliant Maidu
who spoke the language with perfect fluency.
This bilingual version of The Creation weds the Maidu account
with Dan Stolpe's strong, magical and beautiful visual concept
of Coyote. This is a transcendent combination, for which
I am most proud and grateful.
William Shipley 2002
Click
here to see more pages of the Maidu book The
Creation as the Maidu Told It
Click
here to see more pages of the Maidu book The Adversaries
Click
here to see more pages of the Maidu book Love and Death
Click here to see more pages of the Maidu book Coyte the Spoiler |
