Book of the Fourth World: Reading the Native Americas through their LiteratureThe Book of the Fourth World offers detailed analyses of texts that range far back into the centuries of civilised life from what is now Latin- and Anglo-America. At the time of its 'discovery', the American continent was identified as the Fourth World of our planet. In the course of just a few centuries its original inhabitants, though settled there for millennia and countable in many millions, have come to be perceived as a marginal if not entirely dispensable factor in the continent's destiny. Today the term has been taken up again by its native peoples, to describe their own world: both its threatened present condition, and its political history, which stretches back thousands of years before Columbus. In order to explore the literature of this world, Brotherston uses primary sources that have traditionally been ignored because they have not conformed to Western definitions of oral and written literature, such as the scrolls of the Algonkin, the knotted strings (Quipus) of the Inca, Navajo dry-paintings and the encyclopedic pages of Meso-America's screenfold books. |
Contents
America as the Fourth World | 1 |
Provenance | 9 |
Political memory | 131 |
Tollan | 156 |
Turtle Island | 174 |
Tahuantinsuyu | 193 |
Genesis | 215 |
World ages and metamorphosis | 238 |
Other editions - View all
Book of the Fourth World: Reading the Native Americas through their Literature Gordon Brotherston No preview available - 1995 |
Book of the Fourth World: Reading the Native Americas through their Literature Gordon Brotherston No preview available - 1993 |
Common terms and phrases
Ahau Algonkin American Anasazi Andean Aztec birds Brotherston calendar Carib Census century chapter Cherokee Chichimec Chilam Balam Chilam Balam Books Cholula Chumayel Codex Coixtlahuaca Map cosmogony creation Cuauhtinchan Cuauhtitlan culture Cuna Cuzco cycle dry paintings earth east epic Féjérváry four Fourth World Guaman Poma hero hieroglyphic human Iconic script ikala Inca Indian jaguar katun language Lévi-Strauss Lienzo llama Lords lowland Maya maize Mapuche Mendoza Mesoamerica Mexico Mexquital Mide Mixtec moon mountains Nahuatl narrative native Navajo Nueva corónica Ollantay Pachacuti Papaloapan political Popol vuh Quecholli Quechua Quetzalcoatl Quiché quincunx quipu rainforest reading Reed Ríos ritual Runa yndio screenfold scrolls shaman Signs snake Spanish story Sunstone Tahuantinsuyu Tenochtitlan teoamoxtli Tepexic Annals texts Tilantongo Tlaxcala Toltec tonalamatl toponyms towns tradition translation tree tribute Tula Tupac Turtle Island Twins Watunna Winter Count world ages Xibalba xiuhtlapoualli Yauri Zuni