Four legends told by Prarie Indian elders.

A retelling of the Navaho legend that explains the patterns of the stars in the sky.

In this seasonal treasure, Newbery Medalist Susan Cooper’s beloved poem heralds the winter solstice, illuminated by Caldecott Honoree Carson Ellis’s strikingly resonant illustrations. So the shortest day came, and the year died . . . As the sun set on the shortest day of the year, early people would gather to prepare for the long night ahead. They built fires and lit candles. They played music, bringing their own light to the darkness, while wondering if the sun would ever rise again. Written for a theatrical production that has become a ritual in itself, Susan Cooper’s poem "The Shortest Day" captures the magic behind the returning of the light, the yearning for traditions that connect us with generations that have gone before — and the hope for peace that we carry into the future. Richly illustrated by Carson Ellis with a universality that spans the centuries, this beautiful book evokes the joy and community found in the ongoing mystery of life when we celebrate light, thankfulness, and festivity at a time of rebirth. Welcome Yule!

Millions of immigrants were attracted to the Canadian West by promotional literature from the government in the late 19th century to the First World War bringing with them visions of opportunity to create a Utopian society or a chance to take control of their own destinies.

Oral traditions and myths have long been an integral part of Native American cosmology. Not only have they been - and continue to be - an essential part of handing down Native American customs, norms, beliefs, and cultural histories, but they also form a communal mythic discourse. This discourse is not a "fixed text," but rather a dynamic process of interactive relations that are developed over generations of experience, and passed from relation to relation and generation to generation. In this sense, the traditional structures of mythic discourse serve an integrative function: to form a coherent basis for communal identity in terms of a shared set of fundamental ideas and beliefs expressed in multiple forms. The oral traditions and myths recorded in this book are part of the communal mythic discourse of the Lakota Sioux people. Originally collected and recorded at the close of the nineteenth century by two Native language speakers - Marie L. McLaughlin and Zitkala Sa - these oral traditions provide some of the least distorted or colonially disrupted examples of the Lakota Sioux communal mythic discourse. Containing over 40 oral traditions, Lakota Sioux Legends and Myths brings together into a single volume these remarkable myths and legends. Edited and with a forward by Peter N. Jones, Ph.D., Lakota Sioux Legends and Myths is a welcome and refreshing addition to the literature. Once again the beauty, depth, and knowledge contained within the Lakota Sioux oral traditions can speak for themselves.