The Blind Man and the Loon: The Story of a Tale.
Lundquist, Suzanne Evertsen
The Blind Man and the Loon: The Story of a Tale. By Craig Mishler.
Lincoln, NE and London: University of Nebraska Press, 2013. Pp. vii +
246, list of illustrations, foreword, preface, acknowledgements,
introduction, conclusion, afterword, appendices, notes, references,
index.
The result of forty years of research, Craig Mishler's The
Blind Man and the Loon is a significant example of what
twenty-first-century folklorists do. Mishler's text is an
auto-ethnography--a work in which Mishler acknowledges his role as a
"curator, biographer, interpreter, and friend" of the story as
well as those tellers whose continual reiterations span across the
subarctic from Alaska and Northwest Canada to Labrador and Greenland
(xx). The narrative, in variation, spans eight regional groups or
"oicotypes", "moving fluidly across the continents of
North America and Greenland like gigantic herds of caribou" (xxv).
Mishler gives ample evidence of the "livingness" of the tale
as it has emerged from time immemorial (when loons could speak with
people) into popular media: films, compact discs, radio broadcasts, a
ballet, a composition of chamber music, theatrical performances, and
various literary adaptations (119-20). Mishler says that an estimated 33
million people have seen the abbreviated film adaptation/revision The
Loon's Necklace (123). Mishler has also "discovered ...
eighty-six artistic works "based on the tale created by no less
than fifty-four different artists"--paintings, etchings,
sculptures, woodcuts, and masks (96). Contemporary Native storytellers
Annie Blue (2009), James and Maggie Gilbert (1973), and Kenny Thomas
(2000) are included under Mishler's designation of artists.
The text includes Mishler's commendable discussion of the
contributions and shortcomings of well-known folklorists Hinrick Rink,
Emile Petitot, Franz Boas, and Knud Rasmussen, as well as criticisms of
semi-literary variants by such notable authors as N. Scott Momaday. The
ethics of collecting, translating, and redacting are brought into
question. Mishler calls Native storytellers cartographers. He contends
that "the story of the Blind Man and the Loon is a cognitive map of
ancient Indian and Eskimo cultures, plotting systems of knowledge,
emotion, belief, and value" (154). The tale is, in many respects, a
cautionary tale. "Even when corrupted" by ignorant, unaware,
unethical collectors who don't acknowledge their informants, edit
out portions (the violence) of the tale, or mash versions together, the
story remains "a vibrant, protean piece of culture, a life
force," says Mishler (155).
If anthropologists, ethnographers, folklorists, and mythographers
can be called scientists, Mishler's text is dense with the stuff of
scientific investigation: data, facts, maps, folkloric structures (the
morphology and molecular structure of the narrative), and linguistic
analyses (original native renditions set alongside translations).
Drawing on an analogy from Darwin's study of groups of finches,
Mishler groups various versions of the tale into eight "regional
oicotypes." However, it is in the chapters discussing the function
and possible meanings of the story that Mishler's text takes flight
and travels with the loons. The story is troubling in any Native variant
(popular redactions tend to leave out the violent reciprocity). A blind
man (often a shaman) in a subsistence culture is tricked out of his kill
for food by a selfish, cruel, and angry grandmother or wife. Often left
to survive on his own, or with the help of a sister, loons take pity on
the medicine man and restore his sight through their healing medicines
or rituals. With his sight restored, the man returns to his people and
wreaks vengeance on the woman who betrayed him.
The above oversimplification of the narrative runs counter to what
Mishler advises for any retelling; but the essential disturbing details
are there--void of the ethnopoetics typical of the telling by Maggie
Gilbert rehearsed in Chapter Four. Of particular delight is
Mishler's reference to a YouTube site where Maggie's voice can
be heard speaking the story in Gwich'in with the sound of her clock
chiming in the background (86). Maggie's Gwich'in version of
the tale includes the children of the medicine man who collude with
their mother in the betrayal of their father. The shaman kills his wife
and abandons his children because of their mutual treachery. The
shaman's relatives are not happy with his behavior; and Maggie
believes the man's behavior is too "harsh" (82, 88). Such
a telling seems to demand commentary. The narrative has mythic import
and, therefore, reveals a female as instigator of the disruption of a
problematic yet harmonious cultural ethic. The creation of violent
reciprocity ensues--a role given to a male of some spiritual stature. Is
gender hostility foundational? That the tale has endured through time is
referenced by Maggie's continual punctuation of the story with
"they say." And "they say" is a typical reference to
mythic/historical/ psychological truth.
Mishler is "convinced" that the story is told "by
Natives everywhere in the North because it weaves together several basic
themes or tenets of indigenous Native American and First Nations
life" (137). Among these themes are: the necessity of sharing food
in subsistence cultures, the significance of kinship cooperation, the
conflicts that can dismantle families and cultures, the obligation of
Native peoples to care for the disabled, and the sympathy that must
endure if tribal peoples are to endure. Of particular interest to
Mishler are the transformative elements in the tale: "the
transformation of a blind man into one that sees, the transformation of
a wicked woman into a narwhal" and the ritual transformation
brought about by the power of the loons to heal. The killing of various
animals--polar bear, moose, deer, buffalo--by the shaman might also
indicate a passage into manhood, including the arrival of "sexual
potency." Dimensions of psychology, sociology, ethnography and
social justice rise up in Mishler's commentary. The durability of
the tale can be attributed to the fact that "the tale offers
practical and symbolic solutions to complex social problems such as the
breakdown of the nuclear family and the destruction and loss of kinship
rights and obligations" as well as decoding the formulation of the
ethical demands of cultural identity formation (155). Additionally, the
tale teaches while it entertains.
While Craig Mishler insists that folktales like the Blind Man and
the Loon be "respected as the private property of the storyteller,
of the community, or of the indigenous tribal group" from which
they come, they are also models of human communities' efforts to
establish meaning that transcends boundaries and provides insight into
collective archetypes that contribute to our cross-cultural humanity.
Essential to such insight is the unveiling of violent reciprocity that
appears to be deep-rooted in many mythologies--an insight continually
discussed by Rene Girard in the multiple conferences dedicated to
Girard's thought. Such violent reciprocity can be seen in numerous
instances in contemporary political and religious practices. When Maggie
Gilbert ends her story with, "That's what is said about
it./And so that's it./That's the end of the story" and
her husband adds, "Nothing more," could that be an indication
of the discontinuity of cultural life-ways or the loss of cultural
integrity brought about by violent reciprocity? The publication of The
Blind Man and the Loon by the University of Nebraska Press is yet
another contribution of the press to the world's body of knowledge.
The text could be used in university classes within various disciplines:
anthropology, sociology, psychology, and, of course, the humanities.
Suzanne Evertsen Lundquist
Brigham Young University
Provo, Utah
