The story of the Blind Man and the Loon is a living Native folktale about a blind man who is betrayed by his mother or wife but whose vision is magically restored by a kind loon. Variations of this tale are told by Native storytellers all across Alaska, arctic Canada, Greenland, the Northwest Coast, and even into the Great Basin and the Great Plains. As the story has traveled through cultures and ecosystems over many centuries, individual storytellers have added cultural and local ecological details to the tale, creating countless variations. In The Blind Man and the Loon: The Story of a Tale, folklorist Craig Mishler goes back to 1827, tracing the story's emergence across Greenland and North America in manuscripts, books, and in the visual arts and other media such as film, music, and dance theater. Examining and comparing the story's variants and permutations across cultures in detail, Mishler brings the individual storyteller into his analysis of how the tale changed over time, considering how storytellers and the oral tradition function within various societies. Two maps unequivocally demonstrate the routes the story has traveled. The result is a masterful compilation and analysis of Native oral traditions that sheds light on how folktales spread and are adapted by widely diverse cultures.

The Iroguoian people-Huron, Iroquois and many others-lived throughout the Great Lakes basin and the St. Lawrence River valley.Their lands were rich in game, criss-crossed by waterways and well suited for agriculture. They cleared fields around large fortified villages and lived in longhouses made of wood. Men's activities centered on hunting, fishing and a far-reaching trade with other tribes. Women grew and harvested the crops of corn, beans and squash. These abundant resources made possible a sophisticated culture. They formed leagues with laws and a constitution, invented games like lacrosse and used wampum shells as a form of exchange. This book describes in fascinating detail every aspect of the Iroquoian way of life-farming, hunting, trading, beliefs, clothing, housing, clans and villages, political structure, warfare-as well as the impact of contact with Europeans. Jillian Ridington has taught native studies and works as a freelance researcher, writer and broadcaster. Robin Ridington teaches anthropology at the University of British Columbia. The are also the authors of People of the Trail. Ian Bateson is a freelance artist whose books include People of the Trail and People of the Ice.

Robin Ridington and Dennis Hastings ingeniously adopt the conventions of Omaha oral narratives to tell the story and convey the significance of the Sacred Pole. Portions of classic anthropological texts (particularly Fletcher and La Flesche's "The Omaha Tribe"), Omaha narratives, and other historical and contemporary accounts are repeated--each time in a different, more enlightening context--in a circle of stories seamlessly woven around Umon'hon'ti. The result is an innovative account that effortlessly glides between past and present. This unique blend of Omaha poetics, ethnography, and ethnohistory is a significant contribution to our understanding of the religious life of Native Americans.