— Book Review —

“The Sacred Oral“The Sacred Oral

Tradition”Tradition”Title: “The Sacred Oral Tradition of the Havasupai:

As Retold by Elders and Headmen Manakaja and Sinyella1918-1921”

Editors: Frank D. Tikalsky, Catherine A. Euler, and John NagelISBN: 978-0-8263-4931-6

$27.95, cloth336 pages, six color photographs

Three halftones, four mapsPublications date: 2011

Publisher: University of New Mexico Press,www.unmpress.com

By Rosanne Boyett

Beacon Staff Writer

Editor’s note: Book review articles are available online at

www.cibolabeacon.com/bookreviews.

These 48 Havasupai tales are traditionally told only dur-

ing the winter months.

The book’s introduction includes the elders’ request that

readers and storytellers honor this centuries-old religious

practice.

The Havasupai have lived in northwestern Arizona for

hundreds of years. The Yuman language, which is the

basis of the Havasupai culture, is widespread throughout western Arizona, southern California and Mexico’s Baja Peninsula.

The tribe’s first interactions with Europeans were with a Spanish Franciscan priest, Father Garces, in 1776.

But it wasn’t until early in the 20th century that linguists, historians and anthropologists began carefully researching the Havasupai,

one of the tribes that had inhabited the Grand Canyon region long before any Native American tribe encountered Europeans.

An example included in this collection, “Then the boy went to the east, and the old woman went to the west. ‘You, old woman,

stay alive over there. You will never die. It will be the same with me. I will never be a man; I will always remain a little boy. Neither

of us will ever die, just stay as we are.’

The boy said, ‘Any time I feel that I want to go to see you, I will cross high in the sky. As I go, it will be clouded all over; after I

see you, I will return.’”

This tale was told by Sinyella, a tribal elder and headman, and interpreted by Jess Chicapanega in 1919.

In “Porcupine and Coyote (Second Version)” the story begins, “Porcupine camped all alone. He made many arrows with very

sharp points. He went to hunt a deer . . . He shot it in the shoulder. The deer ran a short distance and then fell dead. He started to

butcher it with a large arrow because he had lost his knife.”

This version was told by Manakadja, an elder and headman, and interpreted by Lillie Burro in 1921.

These tales were originally transcribed during 1918-21 by two Columbia University graduate anthropology students, Leslie Spier

and Erna Gunther.

“Questions arise about whether additional stories were known by people who chose not to speak to anthropologists. Or, as an-

thropologists studying the Quechan found, there were different versions of the men’s and women’s stories,” wrote Catherine Euler,

who authored the chapter “History, Leadership, and Language.”

“According to one modern Havasupai elder, some of the traditional stories were still being told in 2006 from memory alone,” she

added.

This 20th century collection of stories is the earliest, most complete, most accurate rendition of the prehistoric cultural library

that was carried for centuries in the minds of Havasupai headmen and elders, according to the editors.

Editor’s Note: Frank D. Tikalsk, Ed .D., is a clinical psychologist who lives in Bayfield, Colo. Catherine A. Euler, Ph. D., is a historian currently

teaching at the University of Arizona.

John Nagel, M. D., is a psychiatrist in Fort Collins, Colo.