33.3594, Books: Masahkamikohkwêwa (Grandmother Earth) Volume 1: Goddard, Poweshiek (trs.), Thomason, Goddard (eds.), Kiyana, Goddard

Wed Nov 16 22:47:35 UTC 2022

LINGUIST List: Vol-33-3594. Wed Nov 16 2022. ISSN: 1069 - 4875.

Subject: 33.3594, Books: Masahkamikohkwêwa (Grandmother Earth) Volume 1: Goddard, Poweshiek (trs.), Thomason, Goddard (eds.), Kiyana, Goddard

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Editor for this issue: Maria Lucero Guillen Puon <luceroguillen at linguistlist.org>
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Date: Wed, 16 Nov 2022 22:47:25
From: Joshua Snider [mundartpress at yahoo.com]
Subject: Masahkamikohkwêwa (Grandmother Earth) Volume 1: Goddard, Poweshiek (trs.), Thomason, Goddard (eds.), Kiyana, Goddard

Title: Masahkamikohkwêwa (Grandmother Earth) Volume 1 
Subtitle: A Synchretistic Meskwaki Cosmology 
Publication Year: 2022 
Publisher: Mundart Press

Book URL: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/masahkamikohkw-wa-goddard/1142052571?ean=9798986545004 

Author: Alfred Kiyana
Author: Ives Goddard
Translator: Ives Goddard
Translator: Horace Poweshiek
Editor: Lucy Thomason
Editor: Ives Goddard

Paperback: ISBN:  9798986545004 Pages: 418 Price: U.S. $ 30.00

Abstract:

This book is an edition and translation of a manuscript written over a century
ago in Meskwaki by Alfred Kiyana. The author combines elements of traditional
Meskwaki culture and oral literature with elements of conventional Christian
belief, reconciling them in a complex explanatory cosmology that accounts for
many aspects of how the world of humans is the way it is. The main characters
are Wîsahkêha, the culture hero ('our maternal nephew'), and Masahkamikohkwêwa
('our grandmother'), who is eventually transformed by him into the Earth.
Other major roles are played by God, who is Wîsahkêha's good friend, and the
Devil. And a number of other manitous (spirits), including angels, also appear
prominently. The friendship between Wîsahkêha and God is strained by God's
foolish behavior, which the Devil causes and which, among other things,
accounts for the origin of venereal disease. The Devil's punishment and
torture of women who had had multiple sexual partners in their previous lives
is ended by Masahkamikohkwêwa, and she arranges for the most abused of these
women to be reborn in order to instruct girls about sex on the basis of her
own experiences. After Wîsahkêha frees God from this enchantment, the two
friends assign the Devil to be in charge of malefactors in the afterworld. The
story takes place in the sky worlds of the manitous, whose daily lives and
activities anticipate and effectively determine how humans will live on the
eventual earth. There are also journeys to the world beneath the world ocean
that is far below the sky. Among other things, Wîsahkêha and Masahkamikohkwêwa
prefigure, and hence establish for humans, the practices of courtship and sex.
She initiates the growing of corn and other garden crops. When Wîsahkêha's
plans take shape, he organizes councils of the manitous to plan things for the
eventual People-to-Be. Among other things, they propose that people should
have different languages and wars. After Wîsahkêha makes the Earth out of
Masahkamikohkwêwa, they create its various features as well as the Sun, the
Morning Star, and the Thunderers. Wîsahkêha and Masahkamikohkwêwa make and
instruct the first human couple, and Wîsahkêha instructs the manitous on their
duties. There is a brief mention of God making a place for his people, with
Wîsahkêha's help. Wîsahkêha establishes the use of clan feasts with sacred
packs and songs, and he warns that people should never stop having them. The
manuscript, with just under 1,200 pages, is the longest of those written by
native speakers in the Meskwaki alphabetic syllabary that are in the National
Anthropological Archives of the Smithsonian Institution. Meskwaki, earlier
called Fox, is the heritage language of the Meskwaki Nation (the Sac and Fox
Tribe of the Mississippi in Iowa), whose settlement lands are in Tama, Iowa.

Linguistic Field(s): Ling & Literature
                     Text/Corpus Linguistics

Subject Language(s): Meskwaki (sac)

Language Family(ies): Algonquian
                      Central Algonquian 

Written In: English  (eng)

See this book announcement on our website: 
http://linguistlist.org/pubs/books/get-book.cfm?BookID=163993

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