Great Plains Studies, Center for
Date of this Version
2005
Abstract
For half a century Barre Toelken has studied Native American cultures in the West. In this volume he offers a perspective on how outsiders can approach the study of Native Americans using methods developed by the discipline of folklore. In doing so he displays a rare humility, exemplified by the book's title. The structure of its shell, he tells us, records "the ongoing responses of the living snail"; over time these form patterns whose meanings can be explored. Taking the snail shell as his metaphor for culture, he proposes that just as we can learn from studying the patterns in the shell "the 'agonies' experienced by snails,'" so, too, we as outsiders can learn from the study of Native American cultural expressions something about a group's beliefs and assumptions-its "anguish," that is, "the accumulated emotional load articulated in traditional contexts."
Comments
Published in GREAT PLAINS QUARTERLY 25:4 (Fall 2005). Copyright © 2005 Center for Great Plains Studies, University of Nebraska–Lincoln.