American Indian Prose and Poetry: An Anthology

To the American Indian, the thought and the word were sacred, and each of the many tribes had its own channels of expression. Thus grew up a store of unrecorded literature. This book was the first anthology of American Indian prose and poetry, and reveals that aboriginal America had a body of primitive literature worthy to rank beside those of other continents and races, and demonstrated the American Indian to be "an outstanding poet, a singer of exquisite songs, a maker of sublime prayers, dangerous spells, and a judicious teller of tales and mythic stories."