"In Vain I Tried to Tell You"

A landmark volume that revolutionized our understanding of the power and significance of Native stories and storytellers in North America, "In vain I tried to tell you" showcases the methodology and theory of ethnopoetics. Focusing on the rich Native storytelling traditions of the Pacific Northwest, Hymes investigates what particular stylistic and linguistic devices and pattern...

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A landmark volume that revolutionized our understanding of the power and significance of Native stories and storytellers in North America, "In vain I tried to tell you" showcases the methodology and theory of ethnopoetics. Focusing on the rich Native storytelling traditions of the Pacific Northwest, Hymes investigates what particular stylistic and linguistic devices and patterns in oral tales reveal about rhythm and order in the cultures creating them. A breathtaking series of analyses of particular myths and their relationship to performance forms the centerpiece of this volume. The concluding essays explore Native perspectives and approaches to stories, highlighting the reasons behind the storytellers' choices of characters, genres, and titles. This edition features a new introduction by the author, a more comprehensive general index, and an expanded index to analyzed translations and English-language texts. Dell Hymes is professor emeritus of anthropology and English at the University of Virginia. He is the author of many books, including "Now I Know Only So Far: Essays in Ethnopoetics" (Nebraska 2003).

Introduction 5
Ethnological Note 15
Orthographic Note 24
Part One Unsuspected Devices and Designs
1. Some North Pacific Coast Poems: A Problem in Anthropological Philology 35
Postscript 62
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Introduction 5
Ethnological Note 15
Orthographic Note 24
Part One Unsuspected Devices and Designs
1. Some North Pacific Coast Poems: A Problem in Anthropological Philology 35
Postscript 62
2. How to Talk Like a Bear in Takelma 65
Part Two Breakthrough to Performance
3. Breakthrough into Performance 79
Appendix ("The story concerning Coyote") 134
Postscript (Letter to Dmitri Segal) 138
4. Louis Simpson's "The Deserted Boy" 142
Postscripts (Comparative perspective; The Tempest; Ruth Estabrook's response)
178
5. Verse Analysis of a Wasco Text: Hiram Smith's "At'unaqa" 184
6. Breakthrough into Performance Revisited 200
Part Three Titles, Names, and Natures
7. Myth and Tale Titles of the Lower Chinook 263
Postscript (Comparative perspective) 269
8. The "Wife" Who "Goes Out" Like a Man: Reinterpretation of a Clackamas Chinook Myth 274
Postscripts (Literary uses and related versions; speech and Bernstein's codes; meta-narrative expressions; wider implications) 299
9. Discovering Oral Performance and Measured Verse in American Indian Narrative 309
10. Reading Clackamas Texts 342
Epilog 382
Index to Analyzed Translations and English-Language Texts 385
Bibliography 386
Index 399
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