Walking Along: Plains Indian Trickster Stories

Description

This book offers a great selection of trickster tales from the Lakota people. I found every story both amusing and worthwhile for purposes of moral teaching to children. However, I don’t feel the author offers the right respect for these stories. He tells us at the start that there is no “authentic” version of the stories. I don’t believe this is altogether true. What is true is that there is no single authentic form for a traditional story. Different storytellers will inevitably add their own flair to a story. And so long as the story is properly respected, all of these tellings are authentic. However, in this case I think the author takes far too much liberty with the stories, and replaces the subtle moral teachings of the original with a very heavy-handed approach that is not only “teachy” in the worst sense, but also distracts from the humor and flow of the narratives. He also takes far too much liberty with his presentation of a sacred myth character, for instance having him constantly comment on his desire for fast food, and showing him wearing T-shirts saying such things as “Chief Indian”. Maybe the author does this on the misguided belief that he needs to “humanize” him by anglicizing him, but there is no need for this and I found this portrayal distasteful. However, the stories here are good enough that the book is worth holding on to, although with own children I would probably ignore reading anything but the narrative text.