Franz Boas in Translation

Franz Boas in Translation is the ultimate study of the legendary anthropologist Franz Boas and his work on the American Northwest. This groundbreaking study analyses what Boas did with local Native American legends passed down by the region’s tribal groups. Three translations, originally published in 1888 and 1895, are presented here and constitute Boas’s early attempts to define the cultural history of Pacific Northwest tribes. Using definitive plots, details, and incidents from a large collection of myths, comparative myths from other indigenous cultures, and a statistical method of multivariant analysis, Boas not only defined the historical relations of the regional tribes but also the role of diffusion in those relations.