The Magic World — 1991 ·

American Indian Songs and Poems

Edited by William Brandon

With an introduction and preface by William Brandon

“As fine a collection of American Indian songs and poems as has ever been assembled.”

New York Times Book Review

“The Magic World deserves its present republication. These excerpts are taken from an American Indian expression extending in time and scope from the codices of the ancient Mayas and Nahuas to songs of the modern Iglulik Eskimo.… It’s high time these myths, songs, poems, and tales be recognized as literature. Their beauty and honesty remind us that the world of magic is not produced by a push button.”

Frank Waters

Traditionally, the legends, myth-cycles, tales, rituals, songs and poems of Native Americans (both North and South) have been treated as ethnological data or as curious objects. William Brandon believes that the songs and poems in this volume will, in time, be accepted as representatives of one of the world’s great literatures. The songs and poems speak for themselves, and it is especially appropriate that they should appear now, at a time when Native Americans are reclaiming their heritage and struggling to regain control of their own destinies.

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William Brandon has been a professional writer since 1938. He is the author of Quivira: Europeans in the Region of the Santa Fe Trail, 1540–1820 and New Worlds for Old: Reports from the New World and Their Effect on the Development of Social Thought in Europe, 1500–1800.