A collection of short stories inspired by Kathlamet myths, along with the original myths (sometimes explicated. The tales, as retold myths, are akin to legend and fairy tales, if perhaps rendered from the subconscious of our Wisconsin pioneer legacy....

From: "The Bird-Headed Woman" On an isolated farm near the Black River lived a farmer and his wife who had recently given birth to a child. She quarreled with him because he raged at her in his religion, accusing her of wrongs she had not done to him, and so she left him and took her child to live in the woods where she had found a shack abandoned by loggers. Her husband, alienated by her, began to preach a profound and compelling gospel of sin and the everlasting hell due to sinners, and people from many farms and towns came around to listen to him. She could hear their clamor from the woods where she lived. Like the sound of a train flagged to a sudden halt in the wilderness. Crashing its clashing cars. Seething with hissing steam. At night through the trees she could see the glaring lights of kerosene lamps moving like aural globules upon the lawn and on the porch of the house where men and women gathered to listen to her husband. She went out in the night to listen, leaving her child in the shack, but feared that her child might cry and so went back. The next night she thought: “I will bathe my child in warm wa...

Foreword Introduction to Kathlamet Texts (Franz Boas) Esther: Her Story Myth of Nikciamtca’c (told 1890) The Myth of Perpetual Motion Sun Myth (told 1891) The Story of the Bride Myth of the Swan (told 1894) Catching Sky The Copper is Speared (told 1894) The Fabulous Masked Man and his Faithful Companion: a Tale also Told as “Richard and Beau” or “Dick and Dumb” The Raccoon (told 1891) How to Make a Buck (1) Myth of the Coyote (told 1891) How to Make a Buck (2) Myth of the Salmon (told 1891) Myth of the Salmon (Variant B) (told 1894) Monsters Today (or All the World is Paper) Myth of the Elk (told 1894) The Southwest Wind: Being the True Account & Compilation of the Actual Events of October 8, 1871 Myth of the Southwest Wind (told 1894) The Bird-Headed Woman Myth of Aq!asXe’nasXena (told 1890) Jack and Beulah Rabbit and Deer (told 1894) Topping the Bill Coyote and Badger (told 1891) Blind Granny Goody’s Hairy Lips Panther and Lynx (told 1891) Cecelia and Crab Seal and Crab (told 1891) Adventures in a Wobbling World Myth of the Mink (told 1891) The Berry Girls and their Cookie Kid...