Native American Myths is a wide-ranging examination of mythology
among the First Nations people in Canada and the United States,
featuring examples from Apache, Blackfoot, Cherokee, Cheyenne, Cree,
Inuit, Lakota, Navajo, Sioux, and many other tribes.
Arranged by region and tribe, the book includes creation myths and
heroic journeys, and features a huge range of characters from benign
harvest spirits to fearsome sea beasts, from ominous disembodied heads
to invisible woodland creatures. There are famous figures, too, such as
the trickster Coyote, the mighty Thunderbird, and the cannibalistic
Algonquian monster Wendigo. Ranging from the Inuits in the North to the
Apache in the South, from Tlingit in the West across to Algonquin in the
East, the book delves deeply into the folklore of North America's
Indigenous peoples, exploring the importance of features such as sweat
lodge ceremonies, the concept of balance in The Four Directions, totem
poles, and the idea of the upper world and an underworld.