1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910818604303321

Autore

Krupat Arnold

Titolo

"That the people might live" [[electronic resource] ] : loss and renewal in Native American elegy / / Arnold Krupat

Pubbl/distr/stampa

Ithaca, : Cornell University Press, 2012

ISBN

0-8014-6541-9

0-8014-6585-0

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (256 p.)

Disciplina

810.9897

Soggetti

Indian literature - United States - History and criticism

Folk literature, Indian - History and criticism

American literature - Indian authors - History and criticism

Elegiac poetry, American - Indian authors - History and criticism

Indians of North America - Funeral customs and rites

Loss (Psychology) in literature

Death in literature

Grief in literature

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Note generali

Description based upon print version of record.

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Nota di contenuto

Front matter -- Contents -- List of Illustrations -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction -- 1. Oral Performances (i) -- 2. Oral Performances (ii) -- 3. Authors and Writers -- 4. Elegy in the "Native American Renaissance" and After -- Appendix: Best Texts of the Speeches Considered in Chapter 2 -- Notes -- Works Cited -- Index

Sommario/riassunto

"Surveys the traditions of Native American elegiac expression over several centuries. Krupat covers a variety of oral performances of loss and renewal, including the Condolence Rites of the Iroquois and the memorial ceremony of the Tlingit people known as koo'eex, examining as well a number of Ghost Dance songs, which have been reinterpreted in culturally specific ways by many different tribal nations. Krupat treats elegiac "farewell" speeches of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries in considerable detail, and comments on retrospective autobiographies by Black Hawk and Black Elk. Among contemporary Native writers, he looks at elegiac work by Linda Hogan, N. Scott Momaday, Gerald



Vizenor, Sherman Alexie, Maurice Kenny, and Ralph Salisbury, among others. Despite differences of language and culture, he finds that death and loss are consistently felt by Native peoples both personally and socially: someone who had contributed to the People's well-being was now gone. Native American elegiac expression offered mourners consolation so that they might overcome their grief and renew their will to sustain communal life"--