THE DANCING HORSES OF ACOMA

The author brought these stories together because she was pressured by the sense that the stories themselves, as well as the storytelling tradition of this Oklahoma tribe, were going to be lost. It's lucky thing for American folklore that some people can react capably to this foreknowledge of a slipping away of the valuable past. The stories themselves emerge as powerful in the re-telling. They deal with the substance of all mythology: explanations of the world as these people found it and their idea of the forces controlling nature and human behavior. Their gods are far easier to keep track of than the once the Greeks left us and are far less capricious. The world they controlled was one of rocky aridity and the people took their stories and their wit from their surroundings. The title story is particularly memorable. Wolf Robe Hunt, a chief of this tribe, has illustrated the collection in the flat style of the Acomas -- an arresting, color-full technique.