By Jim Vandergriff
Knox College
Galesburg, IL

The first book review I ever wrote for publication reviewed Yurok Myths, by Alfred Kroeber, the eminent anthropologist, for American Indian Quarterly. I chose to review Karl Kroeber’s book partly because he is Alfred’s son and partly because I hoped for the son’s scholarship to be as strong as the father’s. In general, I find Karl’s book to be both an interesting and useful discussion of what constitutes "artistry" in Native American myths. Karl’s bottom-line is that Native American stories must be judged as individuals, rather than as "versions of." I’ve long believed about art in general that it is best judged within its natal frame. Rather than judge the poetry of Shelley by, say, Alexander Pope’s criteria, I prefer to read Shelley through the lens of his own poetic theory, or Chaucer through his, or Homer through his, and so on.

However, I’m better at that sort of ecumenism when the literature in question comes from my own culture. I have more trouble when the story is framed in terms unfamiliar to me. Thus, a book that promises by its title to teach me about "artistry" in another culture is very attractive to me. Kroeber says he wants "to increase admiration of [Native American artistry] without confining it to forms and purposes familiar because characteristic of Western, written literature" (p. 16) and I say, "Yes! Lead me to it."

Kroeber disappoints me, though. I came away from his book with this: repetition is a Native American literary device; part of artistry lies in manipulating that device in order to shift emphasis and/or alter meaning. One bends the usual to get the new. Okay, I understand that. It helps me to know that, but surely there’s more to Native American artistry.

I expected to have, by the end of the book, a fairly substantial list of such characteristics, a definition, as it were, that identifies (1) what Native American artistry is, and (2) what it is not. I don’t think this book succeeds on that count. Of course, perhaps I should accept his Levi-Straussian foundation and concede that such a list might be philosophically contradictory. As he say, "My proposal is that we perceive each ‘version’ as an individual enactment that is to a degree distorted if explained in terms of any [sic] universal system of myth classification" (p. 76) and "[I] suggest the value of perceiving myth as something like a major Bahktinian speech genre in non-literate Native American societies." (p. 77)

I can deal with that. I’ve read Bahktin et al. However, I’m uncertain how we can have that and the idea of a definition of "artistry." If we accept the Bahktinian view, don’t we pretty much have to abandon the synthetic urge?

Maybe I misunderstand Kroeber’s point. I understand that "a myth is shaped out of many imaginings of personal and communal crises," (p. 86) and its seemingly necessary corollary that each telling is a new myth, that the "art" lies in the individual sculpting of the material. What I don’t get is exactly what that means. How do I take that idea into my classroom? In my Latin classes, I have to tell my students that we can’t make any sweepingly generalized usage rules for subjunctive mood; that we must work with a myriad of independent and individual uses. Must I tell my folklore students that we can’t make any generalizations about Native American myths except that "We ought to examine American Indian myths in and for themselves as carefully wrought artifacts?" How can we say they’re carefully wrought if we don’t define "carefully" and "wrought," if we can’t articulate what constitutes an "artifact"?

Obviously, I find the book troubling because I don’t think it does a very good job of defining what constitutes the title "artistry." I’m also troubled by some of the language in the book. Throughout this book is a Eurocentric assumption about the readers. He speaks of "us" not understanding "them," "us" being readers schooled in the traditions of classical mythology and "them" being Native Americans. Given Kroeber’s genealogical "credentials," I assume he doesn’t intend that kind of othering (though how can one read the post-moderns and not be aware of it?), but I do wish his editors had (a) caught it and (b) asked him to use language less likely to marginalize like that.

Now, let me return to my initial point. Overall I found this book to be well worth my time to read it. I think it makes some points well worth being made, and it certainly contains a number of good stories, as well as some good commentary on them. The book is well situated in the anthropological scholarship, is lucidly written, and not difficult to understand. It is perhaps not a "must read" for anthropologists and others interested in Native American literature, but it’s certainly worth considering.