After the horrible tsunami of 26 December 2004 and the depression that consumed his regular customers at his bar, Jakarta barman Frederick Alloysius decided that what everyone needed was a good laugh. Fred collected hundreds of jokes from his friends and, in association with Equinox Publishing, put them together in a book. This book, The Indian Salesman and Other Jokes, will be sold and all proceeds will be given to the Singapore Association in Indonesia to rebuild schools and hospitals in the Indonesian province of Aceh.

Let there be no doubt, the stereotype is accurate: sales people, more than any other profession, truly love telling jokes and humorous stories. And considering the thousands of individuals they come into contact with throughout their careers, one fact is clear: if a career sales professional could somehow capture and save the best humorous anecdotes they had ever heard, an impressive stockpile of exceptional material would result. However, remembering all those jokes seems rather impossible, now doesn’t it? Not so, for that´s exactly what I´ve done, and the results are all there in Jokes & Stories from a Salesman´s Briefcase.

In American Indian societies, storytelling and speech-making are invested with special significance, crafted to reveal central psychological and social values, tensions, and ambi-guities. As Karl Kroeber notes, "It is our scholarship, not Indian storytelling, that is primitive, undeveloped." ø This book is an essential introduction to the study and appreciation of American Indian oral literatures. The essays, by leading scholars, illuminate the subtle artistry of form and content that gives spoken stories and myths an enduring vitality in native communities yet often makes them perplexing to outsiders. The presentation and analysis of complete oral texts, often without translations, enable the reader to grasp the meaning, purpose, and structure of the tales and to become familiar with the techniques scholars use to translate and interpret them. ø This expanded edition of the widely praised collection contains a recent analysis of the Wintu myth of female sexuality, a revised introduction by Karl Kroeber, a contribution by Dell Hymes, a new translation by Dennis Tedlock, and a new, annotated bibliography.