Tuesday, January 19, 2010
Native Folktale: Sketco the Raven
Ayre, R. (1991). Sketco the Raven. Richmond Hill, Ont: Scholatic.
This book is a compilation the similair narratives that span the oral traditions of the aboriginals of the Pacific north-west. Ayre writes a series of short stories that combine into an overall "biography” of the trickster Raven. Through each story he illuminates how Raven improved upon our world, be it by bringing fire, or light, or weather cycles.
Ayre does bear a signifigant amount of bias as his stories are based off of the recorded accounts of several European ethnologists, making Ayer’s knowledge third hand. The narrative voice is also masculine and, while many native narratives are either sexless or gender bending, all the major characters in Ayers work are male.
Another break from the style of Native narratives the book is sparse in it's imagery, each chapter bearing a single thematic etching print by Philip Surrey.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment