In 1951, as a student of anthropology in Oregon, Gary Snyder set himself
to the task of analyzing the many levels of meaning a single Native
American myth might hold. He Who Hunted Birds in His Father's Village is
the result of Snyder's critical look at a Haida tale that was told by
the great oral poet Ghandl (Walter McGregor) to John Swanton sometime
before 1905. A version of the ubiquitous "swan maiden" story, it tells
of a chief's son who falls in love with a wild goose-girl, loses her,
follows her into the sky, and returns to land as a seagull. Snyder goes
deep into the transformations that occur in the myth, considering
versions of myth from around the world, and explaining how the story
might apply here and now. He writes:
To go beyond and become what-a seagull on a reef? Why not. Our nature is
no particular nature; look out across the beach at the gulls. For an
empty moment while their soar and cry enters your heart like sunshaft
through water, you are that, totally. We do this every day. So this is
the aspect of mind that gives art, style, and self-transcendence to the
inescapable human plantedness in a social and ecological nexus. The
challenge is to do it well, by your neighbors and by the trees, and that
maybe once in a great while we can get where we see through the same eye
at the same time, for a moment. That would be doing it well. Old tales
and myths and stories are the k_ans of the human race.