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Life and Traditions of the Red Man.
Bangor: C. H. Glass and Co., 1893. Small 8vo, original gilt-stamped green cloth. [i]-147 pp., frontis. Early owner’s name in ink at head of second front endpaper. The first edition of this important book on the culture of the Penobscot people of Maine. Joseph Nicolar, a Penobscot Indian, undertook in this work, as he states in his preface, to answer the question “where did the red man come from?” and to “remove the fear that the life of the red man will pass away unwritten.” His account includes the creation story of Klose-Kur-Beh “The Man From Nothing,” once known and proclaimed by all Penobscot Indians, as well as other traditions of the Penobscots. A valuable ethnographic document and “one of the few books about Native American culture written by a Maine Indian,” it was included in The Mirror of Maine : One Hundred Distinguished Books That Reveal the History of the State and the Life of It’s People, published in 2000. It is also quite scarce. REFERENCES: Sprague, Laura Fecych, ed. The Mirror of Maine, #33; not in Williamson or Thompson. CONDITION: Very good, lightly rubbed, upper fore-corners bumped.
Item #6344
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