Beginning in 1907, the anthropologist Robert H. Lowie visited the Crow Indians at their reservation in Montana. He listened to tales that for many generations had been told around campfires in winter. Vivid tales of Old-Man-Coyote in his various guises; heroic accounts of Lodge-Boy and the Thunderbirds; supernatural stories about Raven-Face and the Spurned Lover; and other tales involving the Bear-Woman, the Offended Turtle, the Skeptical Husband--all these were recorded by Lowie.

Beginning in 1907, the anthropologist Robert H. Lowie visited the Crow Indians at their reservation in Montana. He listened to tales that for many generations had been told around campfires in winter. Vivid tales of Old-Man-Coyote in his various guises; heroic accounts of Lodge-Boy and the Thunderbirds; supernatural stories about Raven-Face and the Spurned Lover; and other tales involving the Bear-Woman, the Offended Turtle, the Skeptical Husband--all these were recorded by Lowie. They were originally published in 1918 in an Anthropological Paper by the American Museum of Natural History. Myths and Traditions of the Crow Indians is now reprinted with a new introduction by Peter Nabokov. These concretely detailed accounts served the Crow Indians as entertainers, moral lessons, cultural records, and guides to the workings of the universe.

This Is A New Release Of The Original 1918 Edition.

Beginning in 1907, the anthropologist Robert H. Lowie visited the Crow Indians at their reservation in Montana. He listened to tales that for many generations had been told around campfires in winter. Vivid tales of Old-Man-Coyote in his various guises; heroic accounts of Lodge-Boy and the Thunderbirds; supernatural stories about Raven-Face and the Spurned Lover; and other tales involving the Bear-Woman, the Offended Turtle, the Skeptical Husband--all these were recorded by Lowie.

For nearly ten years between 1907 and 1931, anthropologist Robert H. Lowie lived among the Crow Indians, listening to the old men and women tell of times gone forever. Lowie learned much about what had been, and still was, a society remarkable for its variability and cohesion, and for its resistance to the encroachments of white civilization. Written with clarity and vigor, Lowie's study makes instantly accessible what had taken him years to discover. He sacrificed neither personal sensitivity nor narrative skill to scientific scruples, but brought his scientific work to life. Crow religion, ceremonies, taboos, kinship bonds, tribal organization, division of labor, codes of honor, and rites of courtship and wedlock receive their due. The Crow Indians is a masterpiece of ethnography, foremost for Lowie's portrayal of the different personalities he encountered: Gray-bull and his marital troubles; the great visionary Medicine-crow; Yellow-brow, the gifted storyteller; and many more.