NATIVE AMERICAN ANIMAL STORIES told by Joseph Bruchac
from KEEPERS OF THE ANIMALS by Michael J. Caduto and Joseph Bruchac
$12.95
"Their eyes are not our eyes yet we can see ourselves in them"
---- from the poem Seeing the Animals by Joseph Bruchac
The Papago Indians of the American Southwest say butterflies were created to gladden the hearts of children and chase away thoughts of aging and death. How the Butterflies Came to Be is one of twenty-four Native American tales included in Native American Animal Stories. The stories, coming from Mohawk, Hopi, Yaqui, Haida and other cultures, demonstrate the power of animals in Native American traditions.
Parents, teachers and children will delight in lovingly told stories about "our relations, the animals." The stories come to life through magical illustrations by Mohawk artists John Kahionhes Fadden and David Fadden.
Joseph Bruchac is a nationally acclaimed storyteller, songwriter, poet and author. His work draws on his Abenaki, English and Slovak ancestry. A respect for ancestral roots parallels his belief in ecological and spiritual balance for the benefit of all living things. Bruchac has received several awards: NEA Creative Writing Fellowship, two New York State CAPS Poetry Fellowships, a PEN Syndicated Fiction Award and the Cherokee Nation Prose award. He lives in Greenfield Center, New York, with his wife and two sons.
So it is to this day. Though they dance as they fly, the butterflies are still silent. But still, when the children see them, brightly dancing in the wind, their hearts are glad. That is how Elder Brother meant it to be.