Image of the New World

"For many people one of the great unsuspected treasures of the New World is to be found in its literatures. Many native texts, although written in the Roman alphabet in the post-Columbian period, had been recorded in various other ways, including hieroglyphs and pictographs, long before the Europeans first set foot on the American continent. In this book we see, for example, how the signs and symbols used by the ancient Mexicans, and their method of setting them out on the page, bear a close affinity with the recording systems used by peoples both to the north and the south--from the Algonkin of the Ohio and Great Lakes areas (with their birchbark scrolls) to the peoples of Peru. Such 'classic' American texts provide us with the 'image' of the New World which this book reveals, and have also suggested its main topics : the past and present world 'ages' ; national and tribal origins ; the lore of the planter and hunter ; and the activities of the warrior, the healer and the poet or scribe. This book, with its commentaries on and translation s of carefully selected texts, tells a story which is not widely known. Taken together, the texts are a revelation of the everyday experiences of native peoples in every part of the continent, and of their sufferings in time of war or famine, and not least at the hands of the invaders from the Old World."--Book jacket.