The Inland Whale

Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1959. Presumed First Edition, First printing. Hardcover. Very good/Very good. Paul Bishop (Author photograph) and Joseph Crivy (. [2], 205, [1] pages. Illustrated endpapers. Sources. Inscribed by the author on the half-title page. Inscription reads To Matt & Marion--The luck of Ninaiva [sp?] Theodora Kroeber. DJ is in a plastic sleeve. Foreword by Oliver La Farge. The nine stories from the California Indians which make up The Inland Whale emphasize the common nature of men and women. Love, death, immortality; youth, revenge, incest; faith, murder, humor--all are found in this book. This collection remains in print more than 60 years after its original publication and has proven to be an enduring work of comparative literature. Kroeber was the wife of Alfred Kroeber, an anthropologist known for his work on Native California languages. The Kroebers' daughter was Ursula Le Guin. Theodora Kroeber (née Theodora Covel Kracaw; March 24, 1897 - July 4, 1979) was an American writer and anthropologist, best known for her accounts of several Native Californian cultures. Kroeber attended the University of California, Berkeley and received a master's degree in 1920. She began doctoral studies in anthropology at UC Berkeley. She met anthropologist Alfred Louis Kroeber and married him in 1926. Kroeber began writing professionally late in her life. She published The Inland Whale, a collection of translated Native Californian narratives in 1959. Two years later she published Ishi in Two Worlds, an account of Ishi, the last member of the Yahi people of Northern California. This volume received high praise. Kroeber published several other works in her later years, including a collaboration with her daughter Ursula and a biography of Alfred Kroeber. The Inland Whale is a 1959 book by Theodora Kroeber. It is a retelling of nine pieces of Indigenous American folklore, along with authorial commentary. Kroeber's prose received praise. The book was described as a work of comparative literature, that sought to demonstrate the literary merit of indigenous oral traditions. The Inland Whale contains nine pieces of Indigenous American folklore, and a large section of commentary from the author. Sources for the stories include two unpublished legends from the Yurok and Karok peoples narrated to Theodora Kroeber and her husband Alfred, as well as material in existing collections from the Wintu, Yana, Maidu, Yokuts, and Mohave indigenous groups. The pieces share a common theme of heroines. One is a poem, and another an excerpt from a longer epic work. The pieces are loosely translated by Kroeber, who also edited them to make them accessible to Westerners with no knowledge of ethnology. Kroeber occasionally merged versions of the stories from different groups. The commentary section contains references to the original publication of all the pieces. It also covers the history and distribution of each piece. The book's introduction is by anthropologist Oliver La Farge. Scholar David French, reviewing the book for The Journal of American Folklore, compared it favorably to other retellings of Indigenous American stories, and wrote that it was useful for both scholars and laypeople. According to French, the stories had been edited in a "conscientious and responsible" manner, and the book "demonstrated that a patronizing approach to Indian oral literature is unnecessary". He added that for the general reader the stories were "absorbing", and could "[evoke] pleasure, tenderness, even horror". Butler Waugh, writing in Midwest Folklore, similarly said that despite being written for a popular audience, the book was an "excellent one for folklorists", and added that Kroeber's notes made it "worth its price and more". Scholar Walter Goldschmidt wrote in the American Anthropologist that Kroeber had "built much better than she realizes", and praised her "sensitive, almost lyrical" prose. Folklorist James Tidwell called the book "excellent". The Inland Whale is described as a work of comparative literature. Goldschmidt writes that Kroeber's work is in a long tradition of retellings of folk narratives, such as those by Hans Christian Andersen, the Brothers Grimm, and Joel Chandler Harris, which Kroeber extends by examining an oral tradition. French notes that Indigenous American stories were frequently neglected by scholars, as they were transmitted orally; Kroeber sought in her book to demonstrate their merit as literature. Kroeber examines the "literary implications" of the stories in her commentary at the end of the book. The stories resemble distinct forms of written literature: Waugh therefore argues that the stories demonstrated "genre variations" in oral traditions. Scholar Donald C. Cutter wrote that the book showcased the wide cultural variation within the Californian indigenous people, and therein had a valuable lesson for historians who saw them as a monolithic people.