Tellings from Our Elders
Lushootseed syeyehub, Volume 2: Tales from the Skagit Valley
A collection of nine traditional stories told by the last generation of Elders raised in the Skagit Valley dialects of the Lushootseed language.
Description
Oral stories form a portal through which rich cultural and linguistic information is passed from generation to generation. Tellings from Our Elders, Volume 2, presents stories in the Skagit Valley dialects of Lushootseed, the language of the indigenous people of the southern and eastern shores of Puget Sound. Transcribed from recordings made of the last generation of elders who learned Lushootseed as an exclusive mother tongue, and published with line-by-line interlinear glosses, this collection of nine traditional stories (syeyehub) opens a doorway to cultural knowledge, specialized vocabulary, and patterns of narrative stylistics typical of Coast Salish storytelling.
Reviews
As excellent examples of a specifically linguistic form of textual presentation, these volumes definitely achieve what they have set out to do. As such, they are not books that one would pick up simply to read the stories. Nevertheless, it is possible to discern that the stories are rich in teachings, [and] that they are beautifully told …
- Ewa Czaykowska-Higgins, University of Victoria