The Sun Came Down by Percy Bullchild

Abstract

382 T17estern American Literature The Sun Came Down. By Percy Bullchild. (New York: Harper and Row, 1985. 390 pages, $22.95.) Percy Bullchild is a seventy-year-old Blackfoot Indian from Browning Montana. The Sun Ca'me Down, subtitled "The History of the World ~~ My Blackfeet Elders Told It," is an authentic retelling of tribal myths, legends, and beliefs preserved in older oral traditions. Although Bullchild comments that "the whiteman language is still very foreign to me," his storytelling is rich and leisurely, reflecting spoken narration in diction and form. The book is divided into four sections-"Earth's Beginnings," "Napi Tales," "Kut-toe-yis, Bloodclot Tales," and "Honoring Creator Sun." The earliest stories deal with Sun's creation of the world, including Moon, his wife, seven sons who form the Big Dipper, and another wife, -Mother Earth, whom he enhances with grass, water, landforms, and human and animal life. In the second section, Napi (Oldman) is put on earth to teach Creator Sun's ways, though Napi abuses his powers and undergoes various misadventures. To correct Napi's wrongdoings, Kut-toe-yis (Bloodclot ) is sent to remove sources of wickedness. The final section extends the theme of renewal of human faith-through ceremonialism-and the legends foc\ls on the Starman's wife and the Ancient Pipe Bundle, Beaverman and the Preserving Pelts Pipe Bundle, Scarface and origins of the Honor Lodge for Creator Sun (or Sun Dance) . . Whether or not one fully agrees with Percy Bullchild's view that nonIndians have seriously distorted native history and legend, one must acknowledge that he has produced from his people's viewpoint a work of unique interest. The spiritual view of the Piegans' world, the legendary basis for attitudes and ceremonialism, the touches of humor, tragedy, morality, and universal humanity--all are present in the flow of characters, events, and elements of the natural world found in these linked narratives. The book provides both pleasure and deeper understanding of a powerful Northern Plains culture after "The sun came down and abided with his children...." ROBERT A. RORIPAUGI-I University ot Wyoming Southwestern Fiction 1960-1980: A Classified Bibliography. By Mary Lee Morris. (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1986. 101 pages, $9.95 paper.) In this bibliography Mary Lee Morris, a librarian at Golden Library, Eastern New Mexico University, lists and classifies 501 novels by time and geographical setting, genre, and theme. The genre categories are satire, comedy , adventure, intrigue, mystery, political, romance, juvenile, historical, short story, and biographical; and the themes are cowboys, Indians, Wild West, ...