Myths and Legends of California and the Old Southwest

These are not fairy tales. They are the living voice of peoples who understood the world differently, and who handed down their truths through story for centuries before any of them were written down. Compiled in an era when these oral traditions were in danger of being lost, this collection gathers creation myths, animal legends, and sacred narratives from the tribes of California and the Southwest - including the Zuni, whose Corn Maidens and accounts of the darkness before creation open this volume. The narratives feature Coyote's cunning, Eagle's power, and countless other figures who move between human and spirit worlds, blurring boundaries we often treat as fixed. These are stories where the sacred permeates everyday existence, where mountains speak and rivers remember, where the origins of everything from maize to midnight are explained through encounters that feel at once ancient and startlingly immediate. Reading them is not an escape into fantasy but an invitation to think differently about what stories can do - and about the peoples who have told them.