Mrs. Wilson’s True Tales Retold

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About

These tales are retold from Kathlamet myth. They are not retold as translations. They are retold with a modern meaning, a meaning that matches my own cultural and spiritual sphere. However, their inspiration is Kathlamet and is Mrs. Wilson herself, whose experience as a woman seems to imbue these tales with her particular wisdom. We are accustomed to think of myth as rigid doxology because our own doxology, which is our myth, is so rigid. However, more than a few ethnologists have had to admit they had been duped by tall tales of confidants, who related, as it turned out, personal stories for tribal tales. Not that these were inauthentic, but they were certainly and pointedly rendered from a personal perspective.

Foreword

In Memory of James Buford LevitzA Deering Trade Card (circa 1890), included in the online collection of the Wisconsin Historical Society. Novelty trad...
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Esther: Her Story

In which we are introduced to some of the principal characters of these tales----the Peddler and Captain Maximillian Robin among them-----and the recu...
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Myth of Nikciamtca'c (told 1890) 2

(corresponding to “Esther: Her Story”)You will see that it is loosely inspired, although the mood and quality of magical absurdity is kept, I hope.Aga...
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The Myth of Perpetual Motion

This is a drawing by Leonardo da Vinci, one of several models of self-sustaining rotaries, which he proposed for perpetual motion. His experiments, ho...
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Sun Myth (Told 1891)

(corresponding to “Myth of Perpetual Motion”)The myth of capturing the sun or capturing fire is a myth of human transformation. Man claims a place in ...
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The Story of the Bride

The song in this story----Wildwood Flower----is now a traditional “folk song,” but was composed as parlor music by J. P. Webster, living in Elkhorn, W...
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Myth of the Swan (Told 1894)

(corresponding to “The Story of the Bride”)Women are central to the myths told by Mrs. Wilson. They control the plot. They dominate the characters. Th...
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Catching Sky

“Hope is the Heart in the Body of Belief.”In which we learn how the peddler made Maximilian Robin the man he became and why he hated water, how Amy wa...
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The Copper is Speared (Told 1894)

(corresponding to “Catching Sky”) In which we learn how birds get their colors and why you ought not to trust little girls who go digging for roots th...
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Fabulous Masked Man (Part I)

In which we are introduced to Chicago, city of America’s Will, Heart, Muscle, and Nerve. In the mighty words of Carl Sandburg:“They tell me you are wi...
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