Full Description
Ghosts Dance in an Empty House and Other Stories comprises forty-five narratives dictated by Coquelle Thompson, an Upper Coquille Athabaskan Indian residing on the Siletz Indian Reservation in Oregon, during the fall of 1935. Elizabeth D. Jacobs transcribed the stories from Thompson and selected some for intended publication. In addition to those Jacobs chose, William R. Seaburg combed through Thompson's field notebooks and chose a handful of additional stories, as well as several cognate texts Thompson told to Smithsonian Institution linguist John Peabody Harrington in 1942 and cognates from other Athabaskan and from non-Athabaskan groups in the region.
This companion volume to Pitch Woman and Other Stories: The Oral Traditions of Coquelle Thompson, Upper Coquille Athabaskan Indian, which collected Thompson's myths and folktales, focuses on Thompson's semi-historical tales, narratives of historical events, ethnographic texts, and personal and family stories.
Contents
List of Illustrations
Preface
Foreward
Acknowledgements
Introduction
Chapter 1. Texts and Commentaries
Chapter 2. Semi-Historical Tales
Ghosts Dance in an Empty House
They Gambled
Night Walker
Night People
Two Experiences with Ghosts
Good, White Bird
Grizzly Power and the Umpqua War
Bears Are Avenged
Thunder
Wealth Encounter
Dead Person's Snot is Money
Ghost (A Fast Runner Races)
A Man Shot a Large Snake
Chapter 3. Historical Event Narratives
First Encounter with White Men
Killing Indian Doctors
A Woman Doctor Was Killed for Poisoning
A Man Was Able to Kill a Grizzly Bear
A Man Dodges a Grizzly Bear
Grizzly and Panther
A Bear Swears at a Hunter
An Attempted Raid
Slaves: Runaway and Hunchback
Klikitats and Slaves
Resuscitation
The Big Fire
A Bear in a Boat
Encounter with Baby Seals
Chapter 4. Ethnographic Texts
Hunting Beaver
Description of a Make-Doctor Dance
A Doctoring Session at Siletz (1)
A Doctoring Session at Siletz (2)
A Woman Doctor Doctors
A Girl Was Reluctant to Marry an Old Man
Sibling Incest
Chief's Younger Brother
A Doctoring Session
Rattlesnake Doctors
A Suicide
A Man Visits the Frogs
How the People Obtained Flint
Chapter 5. Personal and Family Stories
Coquelle Thompson's Encounter with Ghosts
Coquelle Thompson's Grandmother Was Mauled by a Grizzly
The Seal Wife
Coquelle Thompson Is Doctored
Coquelle Thompson's Wife Is Doctored, Dies
The Old Hunter
A Hunt Coquelle Thompson Was On
Appendix
References Cited
Index
