Nine Visits to the Mythworld

Ghandl of the Qayahl Llaanas

Ghandl of the Qayahl Llaanas, Robert Bringhurst

• Publisher: Douglas & McIntyre
• Year: 2023
• Print ISBN: 9781771623773, 9781550548037
• eBook ISBN: 9781771623780
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: North American History
• Index: History

In the Fall of 1900, a young American anthropologist named John Swanton arrived in the Haida country, on the Northwest Coast of North America, intending to learn everything he could about Haida mythology. He spent the next ten months phonetically transcribing several thousand pages of myths, stories, histories and songs in the Haida language. Swanton met a number of fine mythtellers during his year in the Haida country. Each had his own style and his own repertoire. Two of them—a blind man in his fifties by the name of Ghandl, and a crippled septuagenarian named Skaay—were artists of extraordinary stature, revered in their own communities and admired ever since by the few specialists aware of their great legacy.

Nine Visits to the Mythworld includes all the finest works of one of these master mythtellers. In November 1900, when Ghandl dictated these nine stories, the Haida world lay in ruins. Wave upon wave of smallpox and other diseases, rapacious commercial exploitation by fur traders, whalers and miners, and relentless missionization by the church had taken a huge toll on Haida culture. Yet in the blind poet's mind, the great tradition lived, and in his voice it comes alive. Robert Bringhurst's eloquent and vivid translations of these works are supplemented by explanatory notes that supply the needed background information.

Table of contents

• Half Title Page
• Masterworks of the Classical Haida Mythtellers
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• A Note on Pronunciation
• Translator’s Acknowledgements
• Introduction: The Blind Poet of Sunshine and Sea Lion Town
• Nine Visits to the Mythworld
• The Way the Weather Chose to Be Born
• Spirit Being Living in the Little Finger
• In His Father’s Village, Someone Was Just About to Go Out Hunting Birds
• The Sea Lion Hunter
• The One Who Got Rid of Nine of His Nephews
• Those Who Stay a Long Way Out to Sea
• Hlagwajiina and His Family
• The Names of Their Gambling Sticks
• A Red Feather
• Map of Haida Gwaii and Vicinity
• Appendix 1 Haida as a Written Language
• Appendix 2 Spelling and Pronunciation
• Notes to the Text
• Select Bibliography