The Bible in Western Indian Mythology
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 2821845 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Jarold Ramsey (0000-0002-6501-8944, corresponding author) |
| Year | 1977 |
| Volume | 90 |
| Issue | 358 |
| Pages | 442 |
| Publication date | 1977-10-01 |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Journal of American Folklore (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0021-8715 • E-ISSN: 1535-1882 |
| Publisher | University of Illinois Press (PUBLISHER • US) |
| DOI | 10.2307/539610 |
| OpenAlex | W2317477762 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 8 |
READING THROUGH THE LETTERS AND REPORTS of the first generation of missionaries among the Indians of the Far West, one looks nearly in vain for transcriptions of or even sympathetic allusions to the Indians' own mythological repertories. Indeed, several evangelists expressed open doubt that the stories they heard from western natives in the 1830's and 1840's were anything more than the tangled yarns of white traders and explorers.' However exasperating to us now, such indifference on the part of the missionaries to the sacred mythology of the tribal peoples they were striving to convert is hardly surprising; it is to be doubted that Augustine of Canterbury and his co-workers in the wilds of late sixth-century England were especially interested in the traditional stories of the Britons, Angles, and Saxons, either. (They were, however, directed by their sponsor, Pope Gregory, to study the aboriginal ceremonies closely and if possible adapt them to Christian uses-a syncretic policy that would have horrified their nineteenth-century American and Canadian successors in the faith.)2 If not texts of native literature courtesy of the early missionaries, what we do have is vivid evidence of the impact of Catholic and Protestant evangelism and preaching on the mythologies of the Indians of the West. It is clear that the Indians did accept stories from the Christian Bible into their oral repertories, with or without accepting the doctrines that
Ancient history · Art · Literature · Mythology · American Constitutional Law and Politics · History · Philosophy · Religious studies
"A Performance-Centered Approach to Leslie Marmon Silko's "Ceremony
Methodological Approaches to Native American Narrative and the Role of Performance
Introduction
The Nakwa Powamu ceremony as rehearsal
Impossible to Disprove Yet Impossible to Believe
American Indians Encounter the Bible
Inventing the Text
Visiting the Six Worlds
| Citations per year | 0.24 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 1993 - 2020 (28) |
| Highly cited | No |