The nine stories contained in this volume are from one of the last of the traditional Haida storytellers, Ghandl of the Qayahl Llaanas. Ghandl was born in 1851 in a small Haida island community off the coast of British Columbia. His world was devastated by waves of European diseases, which wiped out over 90 per cent of the Haidas and robbed him of his sight. He became a skilled listener, taking in the myths, legends, and everyday stories of his people. Creatively adapting them, the blind storyteller became a master of his craft. Nearly all of the poems in this volume are qqaygaang, narrative poems set in the Haida mythtime of long ago. One story, "The Names of Their Gambling Sticks," is a qqayaagaang, a story that juxtaposes mythtime and historical time and is the property of a Haida family. Each poem creatively enacts a myth in a way that illuminates and celebrates the traditional world of the Haidas and reveals Ghandl's own acute sense of the foibles and great potential of all human beings. Meticulously and sensitively translated and annotated by Robert Bringhurst, these stories have finally been given the attention they deserve.
- ISBN10 0803213166
- ISBN13 9780803213166
- Publish Date 1 November 2000
- Publish Status Out of Print
- Out of Print 2 June 2021
- Publish Country US
- Imprint University of Nebraska Press
- Edition Annotated edition
- Format Hardcover
- Pages 222
- Language English