The Bungling Host
The Nature of Indigenous Oral Literature
Daniel Clément author Peter Frost translator
Format:Paperback
Publisher:University of Nebraska Press
Published:1st Aug '18
Currently unavailable, and unfortunately no date known when it will be back
The Bungling Host motif appears in countless indigenous cultures in North America and beyond. In this groundbreaking work Daniel Clément has gathered nearly four hundred North American variants of the story to examine how myths acquire meaning for their indigenous users and explores how seemingly absurd narratives can prove to be a rich source of meaning when understood within the appropriate context. In analyzing the Bungling Host tales, Clément considers not only material culture but also social, economic, and cultural life; Native knowledge of the environment; and the world of plants and animals.
Clément’s analysis uncovers four operational modes in myth construction and clarifies the relationship between mythology and science. Ultimately he demonstrates how science may have developed out of an operational mode that already existed in the mythological mind.
“Anthropologists have been analyzing the oral stories of Aboriginal cultures for a long time. Aboriginal peoples have also been untangling the stories told to them by their elders. Daniel Clément weaves these two perspectives together to get at the meaning of these `myths.’”—Stephen J. Augustine, hereditary chief, Mi’kmaq Grand Council
“The introduction is one of the most readable critiques of structuralism I have ever seen. It is nuanced yet accessible and poses terrific questions about structuralism. I can imagine this [book] as a central resource for Indigenous scholars, historians, naturalists, and anthropologists. It contributes greatly to the comparative study of mythology and to contemporary studies of structural analysis.”—Thomas McIlwraith, assistant professor of anthropology at the University of Guelph and author of ""We Are Still Didene”: Stories of Hunting and History from Northern British Columbia
ISBN: 9781496206053
Dimensions: unknown
Weight: unknown
570 pages