Trickster: A Study in American Indian Mythology (Revised)

The myth of the Trickster--ambiguous creator and destroyer, cheater and cheated, subhuman and superhuman--is one of the earliest and most universal expressions of mankind. Nowhere does it survive in more starkly archaic form than in the voraciously uninhibited episodes of the Winnebago Trickster Cycle, recorded here is full. Anthropological and psychological analyses by Radin, Kerényi, and Jung reveal with Trickster as filling a twofold role: on the one hand he is "an archetypal psychic structure" that harks back to "an absolutely undifferentiated human consciousness, corresponding to a psyche that has hardly left the animal level" (Jung); on the other hand, his myth is a present-day outlet for the most unashamed and liberating satire of the onerous obligation of social order, religion, and ritual.

With commentaries by Karl Kerényi and C. G. Jung
Introduction by Stanley Diamond

Author: Paul Radin
Publisher: Schocken Books Inc
Published: 09/13/1987
Pages: 240
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.40lbs
Size: 8.00h x 5.10w x 0.60d
ISBN13: 9780805203516
ISBN10: 0805203516
BISAC Categories:
- Social Science | Folklore & Mythology
- Social Science | Ethnic Studies | American | Native American Studies
- Philosophy | General

About the Author
PAUL RADIN (1883-1959), was an American cultural anthropologist and folklorist of the early twentieth century specializing in Native American languages and cultures, with a focus on the Winnebago Tribe. He was head of the Department of Anthropology at Brandeis University.

Stanley Diamond is a Professor at the New School for Social Research.