Myths and Tales of the Jicarilla Apache Indians

The publication of "Myths and Tales of the Jicarilla Apache Indians" by the American Folk-Lore Society in 1938 illustrated the richness of the material on the tribes of the Southwest.

Still a treasure-house of information, it appears with a new introduction and for the first time in paperback.

Morris Edward Opler based his pioneering work on the accounts of Jicarilla men and women born in the nineteenth century.

In a preface he explains that the stories, sacred and profane, were meant to be told on winter nights.

The book takes up the creation of the universe, the birth of Killer-of-Enemies and Child-of-the-Water, the slaying of monsters, and the Hactcin ceremony.

Other myths center on games and artifacts, hunting rituals and encounters with supernatural animals, and the trickster Coyote.

There are also vivid, earthy stories of foolishness, unfaithfulness, and perversion; mon-strous enemies; and Dirty Boy's winning of a wife.

A professor emeritus of anthropology at the University of Oklahoma, Morris Edward Opler is an authority on the Apaches.

In his introduction Scott Rushforth considers Opler's work as well as the history of the tribe.