Legends of the Northern Paiute
As told by Wilson Wewa
Legends of the Northern Paiute saves and shares twenty-one original and heretofore unpublished Northern Paiute legends, as told by Wilson Wewa, a spiritual leader and oral historian of the Warm Springs Paiutes. These legends were originally told around the fires of Paiute camps and villages during the “story-telling season” of winter in the Great Basin of the American West. They were shared with Paiute communities as a way to pass on tribal visions of the “animal people” and the “human people,” their tribal origins and values, their spiritual and natural environment, and their tribal culture and daily lives.
Wilson Wewa Jr., a Northern Paiute/Palouse, is known throughout the northwest plateau and the Great Basin as a spiritual leader and keeper of traditional culture. James Gardner was president of Lewis & Clark College from 1981 to 1989.