Nine Visits to the Mythworld

Nine Visits to the Mythworld PDF

Author: Ghandl

Publisher: U of Nebraska Press

Published: 2000-01-01

Total Pages: 236

ISBN-13: 9780803213166

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The nine stories contained in this volume are the finest offerings from one of the last of the traditional Haida storytellers, Ghandl of the Qayahl Llaanas. Ghandl was born in 1851 in a small Haida island community off the coast of British Columbia. His world was devastated by waves of European diseases, which wiped out over ninety percent of the Haidas and robbed him of his sight. He became a skilled listener, taking in the myths, legends, and everyday stories of his people. Creatively adapting them, the blind storyteller became a master of his craft. In 1900 John Swanton, with the help of a translator, transcribed a number of Ghandl's narrative poems. Nearly all of the poems in this volume are qqaygaang, narrative poems set in the Haida mythtime of long ago. One story, ?The Names of Their Gambling Sticks,? is a qqayaagaang, a story that juxtaposes mythtime and historical time and is the property of a Haida family. Each poem creatively enacts a myth in a way that illuminates and celebrates the traditional world of the Haidas and reveals Ghandl's own acute sense of the foibles and great potential of all human beings. Meticulously and sensitively translated and annotated by Robert Bringhurst, these stories have finally been given the attention they deserve.

Nine Visits to the Mythworld

Nine Visits to the Mythworld PDF

Author: Ghandl of the Qayahl Llaanas

Publisher: Douglas & McIntyre

Published: 2023-10-28

Total Pages: 204

ISBN-13: 1771623780

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In the Fall of 1900, a young American anthropologist named John Swanton arrived in the Haida country, on the Northwest Coast of North America, intending to learn everything he could about Haida mythology. He spent the next ten months phonetically transcribing several thousand pages of myths, stories, histories and songs in the Haida language. Swanton met a number of fine mythtellers during his year in the Haida country. Each had his own style and his own repertoire. Two of them—a blind man in his fifties by the name of Ghandl, and a crippled septuagenarian named Skaay—were artists of extraordinary stature, revered in their own communities and admired ever since by the few specialists aware of their great legacy. Nine Visits to the Mythworld includes all the finest works of one of these master mythtellers. In November 1900, when Ghandl dictated these nine stories, the Haida world lay in ruins. Wave upon wave of smallpox and other diseases, rapacious commercial exploitation by fur traders, whalers and miners, and relentless missionization by the church had taken a huge toll on Haida culture. Yet in the blind poet’s mind, the great tradition lived, and in his voice it comes alive. Robert Bringhurst’s eloquent and vivid translations of these works are supplemented by explanatory notes that supply the needed background information.

Nine Visits to the Mythworld

Nine Visits to the Mythworld PDF

Author: Ghandl of Ghandl

Publisher: Douglas & McIntyre

Published: 2023-11-25

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9781771623773

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In the Fall of 1900, a young American anthropologist named John Swanton arrived in the Haida country, on the Northwest Coast of North America, intending to learn everything he could about Haida mythology. He spent the next ten months phonetically transcribing several thousand pages of myths, stories, histories and songs in the Haida language. Swanton met a number of fine mythtellers during his year in the Haida country. Each had his own style and his own repertoire. Two of them--a blind man in his fifties by the name of Ghandl, and a septuagenarian named Skaay--were artists of extraordinary stature, revered in their own communities and admired ever since by the few specialists aware of their great legacy. Nine Visits to the Mythworld includes all the finest works of one of these master mythtellers. In November 1900, when Ghandl dictated these nine stories, the Haida world lay in near ruins. Wave upon wave of smallpox and other diseases, rapacious commercial exploitation by fur traders, whalers and miners, and relentless missionization by the church had taken a huge toll on Haida culture. Yet in the blind poet's mind, the great tradition lived, and in his voice it comes alive. Robert Bringhurst's eloquent and vivid translations of these works are supplemented by explanatory notes that supply the needed background information.

Listening for the Heartbeat of Being

Listening for the Heartbeat of Being PDF

Author: Brent Wood

Publisher: McGill-Queen's Press - MQUP

Published: 2015-11-01

Total Pages: 265

ISBN-13: 0773598111

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Poet, philosopher, translator, typographer, and cultural historian Robert Bringhurst is a modern-day Renaissance man. He has forged a career from diverse but interwoven vocations, finding ways to make accessible to contemporary readers the wisdom of poets and thinkers from ancient Greece, the Middle East, Asia, and North American First Nations. This collection shows the ways in which his industry-standard textbook The Elements of Typographic Style, his remarkable translations of Haida oral epics, and his experimental and traditional poetry and prose form a single coherent project. Listening for the Heartbeat of Being brings together a range of literary scholars, poets, journalists, and publishers to comment on Bringhurst’s far reaching body of work. The essays include a comprehensive biography of Bringhurst, first-hand accounts of his book design and production efforts, an analysis of his ground-breaking polyphonic performance poems, and re-considerations of the Masterworks of the Classical Haida Mythtellers translation trilogy. Experienced Bringhurst scholars join well-known writers such as Dennis Lee and Margaret Atwood to create a multi-dimensional view of Bringhurst’s career. Guided by the simple faith that "everything is connected to everything else," Bringhurst’s ability to listen closely to the great minds of many cultures and represent their voices pragmatically is, as this diverse and insightful book shows, of greater interest than ever in a world facing unprecedented ecological crisis and intensive cultural evolution. Contributors include Margaret Atwood, Nicholas Bradley (University of Victoria), Crispin Elsted (Barbarian Press), Clare Goulet (Mount St. Vincent University), Iain Higgins (University of Victoria), Ishmael Hope, Peter Koch (Peter Koch Printers), Dennis Lee, Scott McIntyre, Katherine McLeod (Concordia University), Kevin McNeilly (University of British Columbia), Káawan Sangáa, and Erica Wagner.

Being in Being

Being in Being PDF

Author: Skaay

Publisher: U of Nebraska Press

Published: 2001-01-01

Total Pages: 408

ISBN-13: 9780803213289

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Skaay of the Qquuna Qiighawaay may have been one of the greatest Native storytellers of all time. Born in the Haida village of Qquuna about 1827 and crippled by an injury in middle age, he devoted himself to the art of telling stories. As the Haidas' older way of life changed dramatically under the onslaught of smallpox epidemics and contact with the outside world, Skaay became the undisputed master storyteller among them. When the young American linguist John Swanton arrived in the fall of 1900 to record Haida myths, poems, and oral histories, Skaay dictated to him some of his best stories. Included in this volume are three of Skaay's masterpieces, recorded originally by John Swanton and edited and translated by Robert Bringhurst: "The Qquuna Cycle" is the longest extant work of Haida poetry and one of the great monuments of Native American literature; "Raven Travelling" is the most complex trickster story ever recorded on the Northwest Coast; and "The Qquuna Qiighawaay" is the brief and poignant story of Skaay's maternal lineage.

Being in Being

Being in Being PDF

Author: Skaay of the Qquuna Qiighawaay

Publisher: Douglas & McIntyre

Published: 2023-10-28

Total Pages: 364

ISBN-13: 1771623764

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Being in Being contains three masterpieces by legendary Haida mythteller Skaay of the Qquuna Qiighawaay. The shortest recounts the high points of the legend of his family. The longest, Raven Travelling, is the most complex version of the story of the Raven ever recorded on the Northwest Coast. The third is The Qquuna Cycle, the largest and most complex literary work in any Native Canadian language. It is a poem of epic length and one of the true masterpieces of North American literature.

A New Biology of Religion

A New Biology of Religion PDF

Author: Michael Steinberg

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA

Published: 2012-07-06

Total Pages: 244

ISBN-13: 1440802858

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This study provides a fresh look at the debate between science and religion that documents how the experiences produced by spiritual practice are surprisingly consistent with the findings of modern biology, despite the difficulty in reconciling scientific theories and religious dogma. This book is unique in its focus on bodily experience as an independent source of knowledge and insight, an important aspect of recent discoveries in neurology and psychology. By rethinking what it is to be human and what role self-consciousness plays, it finds striking points of intersection between science and religion and challenges readers to rediscover their spiritual connections to the physical world. Combining scientific rigor with the spiritual quest, A New Biology of Religion: Spiritual Practice and the Life of the Body reframes the science-religion debate. This profound work examines how all things are connected—both scientifically and spiritually—and shows how religious practices mirror the biological processes of life.

History of Literature in Canada

History of Literature in Canada PDF

Author: Reingard M. Nischik

Publisher: Camden House

Published: 2008

Total Pages: 622

ISBN-13: 9781571133595

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The development of literature in Canada with an eye to its multicultural, multiethnic, multilingual nature. From modest colonial beginnings, literature in Canada has arrived at the center stage of world literature. Works by English-Canadian writers -- both established writers such as Margaret Atwood and new talents such as Yann Martel -- make regular appearances on international bestseller lists. French-Canadian literature has also found its own voice in the North American and francophone worlds. "CanLit" has likewise developed into a staple of academic interest, pursued in Canadian Studies programs in Canada and around the world. This volume draws on the expertise of scholars from Canada, Germany, Austria, and France, tracing Canadian literature from the indigenous oral tradition to thedevelopment of English-Canadian and French-Canadian literature since colonial times. Conceiving of Canada as a single but multifaceted culture, it accounts for specific characteristics of English- and French-Canadian literatures, such as the vital role of the short story in English Canada or that of the chanson in French Canada. Yet special attention is also paid to Aboriginal literature and to the pronounced transcultural, ethnically diverse character ofmuch contemporary Canadian literature, thus moving clearly beyond the traditions of the two founding nations. Contributors: Reingard M. Nischik, Eva Gruber, Iain M. Higgins, Guy Laflèche, Dorothee Scholl, Gwendolyn Davies, Tracy Ware, Fritz Peter Kirsch, Julia Breitbach, Lorraine York, Marta Dvorak, Jerry Wasserman, Ursula Mathis-Moser, Doris G. Eibl, Rolf Lohse, Sherrill Grace, Caroline Rosenthal, Martin Kuester, Nicholas Bradley, Anne Nothof, Georgiana Banita, Gilles Dupuis, and Andrea Oberhuber. Reingard M. Nischik is Professor of American Literature at the University of Constance, Germany.

Canadian Primal

Canadian Primal PDF

Author: Mark Dickinson

Publisher: McGill-Queen's Press - MQUP

Published: 2021-02-18

Total Pages: 261

ISBN-13: 022800537X

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Over the past few decades, a group of writers we might call the Thinking and Singing poets have stood at the forefront of poetry in Canada. These five poets – Dennis Lee, Don McKay, Robert Bringhurst, Jan Zwicky, and Tim Lilburn – are major voices in an era of ecological devastation and spiritual unease. Their diverse, questioning work suggests new ways to confront some of the most pressing issues of our time. In vibrant prose, Mark Dickinson explores the relationship between the lives of these poets and their writing, examining their intersecting careers and friendships, and the ways they learned from and challenged one another. Canadian Primal uses an unconventional approach, blending biography with literary analysis and drawing from meetings and correspondence with each poet over many years to trace the people and events that inspired the creation of important texts. Dickinson tracks how each of the writers arrived at poetry as a way of being, and at the heart of their poetics he finds both a musical intelligence and the crucial importance of the land. Canadian Primal is literary biography reconceived as an adventure of the mind, body, and spirit. Ebullient, intelligent, and eminently readable, it reminds us that we can live on the earth in a different way, true to the defining experiences of our lives, surrounded by meaning and presence beyond our imagining.