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Myths & Legends of the Indians of the Southwest
Bertha Dutton & Caroline Olin
*Myths & Legends of the Indians of the Southwest* is one of Bellerophon Books' distinctive educational coloring books, written by two serious scholars: Dr. Bertha Dutton, longtime director of the Museum of Navajo Ceremonial Art, and Dr. Caroline Olin. Issued in two volumes - one covering the Navajo, Pima, and Apache, the other the Hopi, Acoma, Tewa, and Zuni - it retells traditional stories of the Southwestern peoples and pairs them with line drawings, drawn from the art of those cultures, for the reader to color. Bellerophon's whole line is built on the idea that coloring is a way of looking closely, and here it becomes a gentle route into Native American cosmology and the how-and-why of sandpainting. For families, teachers, or anyone curious about Southwestern myth, it is an unusually substantive coloring book.
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The authors
Bertha Dutton (1903-1994) was a pioneering archaeologist and anthropologist of the American Southwest and longtime director of Santa Fe's Museum of Navajo Ceremonial Art (now the Wheelwright Museum). Caroline Olin was an art historian specializing in Navajo ceremonial art; together they brought real scholarship to a popular format.
The book
Part of Bellerophon's educational coloring-book line, this two-volume set retells the myths and legends of Southwestern peoples and illustrates them with drawings based on the art of those cultures, including material on sandpainting - inviting readers to color as they learn.
How to read it
Treat it as an accessible introduction rather than a scholarly text: the pleasure is in the pairing of genuine expertise with an interactive, hands-on format aimed at younger and general readers.
For more context
For deeper study, turn to Dutton's own scholarly writing on the Pueblos, or to standard collections of Southwestern oral literature.
Sources
- Type
- Book
- Author / Maker
- Bertha Dutton & Caroline Olin
- Publisher
- Bellerophon Books
- ISBN
- 0-88388-049-0
- Shelf
- History
- Location
- Maine
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