Being in BeingBeing in Being

"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 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. Being in Being contains three masterpieces by legendary Haida mythteller Skaay of the Qquuna Qiighawaay. The shortest recounts the high points of the legend of his family. The second, Raven Travelling, is the longest and most complex version of the story of the Raven ever recorded on the Northwest Coast. The third is The Qquuna Cycle, a narrative poem of nearly 5,500 lines, one of the true masterpieces of North American literature. Robert Bringhurst's eloquent and vivid translations of these works are supplemented by explanatory notes that supply the needed background information."--