Ackerman, Robert E.

ARCTIC

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WHERE THE ECHO BEGAN AND OTHER ORALTRADITIONS FROM SOUTHWESTERN ALASKA.Recorded by HANS HIMMELHEBER, translated by KURTand ESTER VITT, edited and annotated by ANN FIENUP-RIORDAN. Fairbanks: University of Alaska Press, 1999.ISBN 1-889963-03-8. 224 p., maps, b&w illus., bib.,index. Hardbound. US$39.95.Hans Himmelheber spent the summer of 1936 in Bethel, atown on the Kuskokwim River in southwestern Alaska,working with an interpreter to record stories and artisticproductions of the Yupik Eskimo. In the autumn of thatyear, he went on the Bureau of Indian Affairs supply shipNorth Star to Point Barrow. On the return trip he stoppedat Nunivak Island, where he overwintered with the Cup’igEskimo from November 1936 to March 1937. The threesections of this volume that record his participant observa-tions and extensive collection of myths, tales, and legends(The Frozen Path, Ethnographic Notes on the NunivakEskimos, and Selected Writings, which includes his arti-cles on the use of noseblood in paint colours and miraclesin West African and Inuit poetry), were originally pub-lished in German (Himmelheber, 1951, 1968, 1975, 1980).These contributions were preceded by the publicationEskimo Artists (1938).Where the Echo Began opens with a biographic sketchof Hans Himmelheber by Ann Fienup-Riordan, entitled“Making His Own Path.” It provides a brief coverage ofthe research that Hans Himmelheber conducted in Alaskaand Africa and valuable insights into the oratory of theEskimo of southwestern Alaska. I found one of her state-ments particularly illuminating: “The telling of the taleserved to insure that what was described came to pass”(p. xxxvii). That is, the power of the word could affect thefuture. With this new perspective, we are led into the majorsection of the volume, The Frozen Path. Here we are soonsurrounded by creation stories, myths, animal stories,peoples’ stories, and ancestor stories. All of these weretranscribed in the original language of the Eskimo story-tellers and then translated with the help of Eskimos whoalso spoke English. Stories from both the KuskokwimRiver and Nunivak Island areas are presented. Beforethese narratives, Himmelheber provides a sketch of theculture of the southwestern Eskimo.The second section, Ethnographic Notes on the NunivakEskimo, is the result of Himmelheber’s participation infour winter festivals: Asiggluteng (Women’s Dancing),Nakacugtarluteng (the Bladder Festival), Qupluteng(“Halving It”), and Petugtarluni (“Small Things are Hang-ing”). This extremely important contribution is unique,for, as Himmelheber noted (p. 107), he was the only one toachieve a detailed description of these ceremonies throughhis role as an active participant, while other authors had torely on descriptions provided by informants. Less distinc-tive, but still valuable, is Himmelheber’s discussion ofreligious beliefs concerning the spirit forces of naturalobjects, animals, and humans; the function of naming; andshamanistic and ritual practices. At the end of this sectionwe are brought back to the everyday world with descrip-tions of fire drilling, the manufacture of wooden eatingbowls, and Eskimo games.The third section, Selected Writings, includes the articleon the use of nose-blood as a binding agent in paint colorsand a comparison piece on the unimaginable miracles inthe poetry of Western Africa and the Eskimos.In the book’s final section (Translation and Transcrip-tion), Ann Fienup-Riordan discusses the structure of theCentral Yup’ik Eskimo language and the problems thatHimmelheber encountered in his attempt to provide aliteral translation of Eskimo myths by reordering theEskimo sentence structure, first into English and then intoGerman. This section is for the more linguistically ad-vanced scholar interested in the transcription of soundsand the nuances of Eskimo grammatical structure. A 1995version of the Dog Husband tale is presented to illustratethe persistence of the narrative forms and story lines, butadditionally to demonstrate that each narrator emphasizescertain aspects of the story to fit current perceptions orevents of his or her own time.Throughout the book are a great number ofHimmelheber’s excellent black-and-white photographs,which are valuable ethnographic sources in their ownright. To say that the volume could be considered of greatvalue just for the photographs is in no way meant to detractfrom the text, which provides unparalleled insights intothe worldview of another culture for the average reader aswell as for the scholar. Ann Fienup-Riordan is to becommended for her efforts in bringing this body of data toEnglish-speaking audiences and for providing marginaliathat add materially to Himmelheber’s original documents.As a final statement, I quote the typical ending for theEskimo tales, “May all my errors take their places andmake little noise doing it!” (p. 47).REFERENCESHIMMELHEBER, H. 1951. Der gefrorene Pfad: Mythen, Märchenund Legenden der Eskimo. Eisenach, Germany: E. Röth.———. 1968. Nasenblut als Bindemittel für mal-Farbe bei denEskimos. HNO (Hals-Nasen-Ohren) Directions (Wegweiser)for Specialized Medical Praxis 16(1):29 –30.———. 1975. Unvorstellbare Wundertaten in westafrikanischerund eskimoischer Dichtung. Tribus 24:85 –85.———. 1980. Ethnographische Notizen von den Nunivak-Eskimo.In: Abhandlungen und Berichte des Staatlichen Museums fürVölkerdunde (Dresden) 38:5 –45.Robert E. AckermanDepartment of AnthropologyWashington State UniversityPullman, Washington, U.S.A.99164-4910REVIEWS • 91

Where the Echo Began and Other Oral Traditions from Southeastern Alaska, recorded by Hans Himmelheber, translated by Kurt and Ester Vitt, edited and annotated by Ann Fienup-Riordan

Robert E. Ackerman

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Where the Echo Began and Other Oral Traditions from Southeastern Alaska, recorded by Hans Himmelheber, translated by Kurt and Ester Vitt, edited and annotated by Ann Fienup-Riordan

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