Book Description

Retold in the Evocative language of a true enthusiast of the Southwest, One-Smoke Stories is Mary Austin's compilation of tales from Native American, Spanish colonial, mestizo, and European American peoples of the Southwest. Through folktales, animal tales, and other genres of popular lore, Austin creates a primer of early-twentieth-century Southwestern cultures. Many stories offer political critiques of intercultural conflicts such as the homesteader's conquest of nature, the assimilation policies of Christian missionaries, and the abuses of colonial government. Others celebrate the multicultural Southwest by representing the spirituality, humor, love, loyalty, and sense of community among the Southwest's diverse peoples. Originally published in 1934, One-Smoke Stories is one of several early-twentieth-century works -- like Charles W. Chesnutt's The Conjure Woman, Mourning Dove's Cogewea, the Half-Blood, and Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God -- that bridged the oral and literary realms by intertwining folklore and fiction. Introduced by Noreen Groover Lape, this new edition of One-Smoke Stories raises timely questions about the permeability of cultural borders. Book jacket.