The Short, Swift Time Of Gods On Earth

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Overview

In the spring of 1935, at Snaketown, Arizona, two Pima Indians recounted and translated their entire traditional creation narrative. Juan Smith, reputedly the last tribesman with extensive knowledge of the Pima version of this story, spoke and sang while William Smith Allison translated into English and Julian Hayden, an archaeologist, recorded Allison's words verbatim. The resulting document, the "Hohokam Chronicles," is the most complete natively articulated Pima creation narrative ever written and a rare ...
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Overview

In the spring of 1935, at Snaketown, Arizona, two Pima Indians recounted and translated their entire traditional creation narrative. Juan Smith, reputedly the last tribesman with extensive knowledge of the Pima version of this story, spoke and sang while William Smith Allison translated into English and Julian Hayden, an archaeologist, recorded Allison's words verbatim. The resulting document, the "Hohokam Chronicles," is the most complete natively articulated Pima creation narrative ever written and a rare example of a single-narrator myth. Now this extraordinary work, composed of thirty-six separate stories, is presented in its entirety for the first time. Beautifully expressed, the narrative constitutes a kind of scripture for a native church, beginning with the creation of the universe out of the void and ing with the establishment in the sixteenth century of present-day villages. Central to the story is the murder/resurrection of a god-man, Siuuhu, who summoned the Pimas and Papagos (Tohono O'odham) as his army of vengeance and brought about the conquest of his murderers, the ancient Hohokam. Donald Bahr extensively annotates the text and supplements it with other Pima-Papago versions of similar stories. Important as a social and historic document, this book adds immeasurably to the growing body of Native American literature and to our knowledge of the development of Pima-Papago culture.

Author Biography: Donald Bahr is Professor of Anthropology at Arizona State University and author of Pima-Papago Ritual Oratory (1975) and Piman Shamanism and Staying Sickness (1974).

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Editorial Reviews

Library Journal
A 1935 account by Pima Indian Juan Smith, who recounted the tribe's creation narrative in the Pima language, and William Smith Allison, who translated it for the recorder, and compiled with the help of archaeologist Julian Hayden, forms the basis of this rare example of a single-origin narrator myth. Anthropologist Bahr puts the document into context through detailed discussions of myth as a historical and religious record, suggesting how the prehistoric Hohokam are revealed through the oral traditions of their conquerors, the Pima-Papago. He supplements the Smith-Allison text with extensive notes and other versions of similar stories. This is an important addition to discussions of oral literature, as well as to Pima-Papago studies. Appropriate for upper division and graduate levels.-Mary B. Davis, Huntington Free Lib., Bronx, N.Y.
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Product Details

  • ISBN-13: 9780520084681
  • Publisher: University of California Press
  • Publication date: 9/1/1994
  • Pages: 352
  • Product dimensions: 0.73 (w) x 9.25 (h) x 7.50 (d)

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments
Introduction 1
0 Prelude, the Font Text 31
1 Genesis 45
2 The Flood 67
3 New Creation and Corn 75
4 The Whore 111
5 Origin of Wine and Irrigation 123
6 Morning Green Chief and the Witch 137
7 Feather Braided Chief and the Gambler 153
8 Siuuhu's Death and Resurrection 179
9 The Conquest Until Buzzard 203
10 The Conquest Until Siwan Wa'aki 235
11 After the Conquest 263
Conclusion: Mythologies 281
Appendix: Correlation of Conquests 285
Notes 291
References 327
Index 333
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