Stories From the Six Worlds (2nd edition): Mikmaw Legends by Ruth Holmes Whitehead


Stories From the Six Worlds (2nd edition): Mikmaw Legends
Title : Stories From the Six Worlds (2nd edition): Mikmaw Legends
Author :
Rating :
ISBN : 1551099829
ISBN-10 : 9781551099828
Language : English
Format Type : Paperback
Number of Pages : 266
Publication : First published March 1, 1989

In Stories from the Six Worlds, it is their stories, passed down by word of mouth, that best preserve and present Mi'kmaw culture. For in their tales, the People themselves speak about their world and give us glimpses of how their universe manifests, in all its fascinating otherness. Mi'kmaw stories have many levels: entertainment, instruction, warnings. They might subtly encode maps of the land's important resources, or of the wheeling skies at night. Telling stories, Elders wove humour and stark tragedy, terror and beauty, to teach their listeners how to survive. More importantly, they underlined, over and over again, how their listeners, as humans, must conduct themselves. Their tales resound with the universal themes included in any worldview--Order and Chaos, Courage and Fear, Change, Revenge and Mercy, Death, Rebirth, and Power--yet are powerfully rooted in Mi'kmaw tradition, Mi'kmaw land. Their voices still speak to us, down the centuries.

Drawing on various sources, Ruth Holmes Whitehead retells the tales in a voice close to that of the original storytellers. This new edition includes an updated design and the original collection of twenty-nine stories.

Stories From the Six Worlds (2nd edition): Mikmaw Legends Reviews

  • Jim Puskas

    A fascinating collection of tales. In common with the Norse and the Greco-Roman mythology, there is a good deal of violence in these stories, but they also offer a unique insight into the attitudes, values and customs of the Micmac. Their perception of a set of multiple, parallel worlds as a setting for the tales, along with their concept of the various creatures and objects within their environment as being "peoples" like themselves, complete with souls goes some way to explaining their relationship with nature and the world around them -- so different from that of Europeans.
    One additional comment about a particular story: "Papkutparut" (the Guardian) bears an intriguing resemblance to the Orpheus legend, right down to the ending. But that story also explains for them the origin of corn, tobacco and berries, so apart from being a really appealing story, it has a practical outcome as well.

  • Araminta Matthews

    This book is a great capturing of the folk tales of the MicMac (called "The People" by the people themselves as Micmac turns out to be a bastardization of the greeting the tribe gave to the Europeans who landed here and later it became the term for the tribe itself). I LOVED learning that the Mi'kmaq language has verb conjugations that could fill an entire book in explanation and that stories of the Mi'kmaq are as capable of shape-shifting as the shape-shifting animate Persons (all living or animate things are Persons in Micmac, including trees, animals, humans, the wind). That is, stories can evolve with the storyteller and are expected to do so. Beautiful concept. I loved this book.

  • VoteTassia

    I read this for a coarse I took in college. It turned out to be one of my most favorite books that I have read. It reads like a mellow wine. Very vivid stories passed from generation to generation in the oral tradition of the Micmac.

  • Sarah Lombard

    this book is so beautiful its hard to put down. magical stories were alot of shape shifting is going on. there are beautiful drawings of what looks like quill work and alot of the stories titles are in the micmac language.