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MEDICINE MEN OF HOOPER BAY: More Tales from the Clapping Mountains of Alaska by Charles E. Gillham

MEDICINE MEN OF HOOPER BAY: More Tales from the Clapping Mountains of Alaska

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Pub Date: April 1st, 1966
Publisher: Macmillan

This is a sequel to the author's collection Beyond the Clapping Mountains (1943) and contains eighteen stories about the folk heroes of this Arctic region, especially the Medicine Men. The introduction explains that these stories have been transmitted orally only and that the Eskimos rarely tell them to outsiders. They strongly reflect the rigid, survival-centered lives that the Eskimos are forced to lead. The simplicity of the narration, which seems to have been taken directly from the storyteller, is refreshing. However the asceticism of the stories is not likely to hold the attention of children. Adult folklorists may well be interested in this, however.