Story audiocassettes & CDs

Beardslee, Lois (Ojibwe):
          Leelanau Earth Stories
          More Leelanau Earth Stories
          Leelanau Earth Stories, Too

Lois Beardslee intended these Woodland Indian stories for an elementary school audience, but like most well-told stories, they are for everybody. These are, as she says, “updated” traditional stories. In one, “The Story of the Frog’s Teeth,” the frogs were originally busted for stealing nuts from the squirrels; in this version, they’re busted for stealing, among other things, potato chips.
cassette 10.00 each, CD 15.00 each

Bruchac, Jim (Abenaki), Northeastern Native American Animal Stories. 1998, all grades.

Jim may or may not consider it a compliment to have it said that he sounds a lot like his father. His rendition of these traditional Abenaki and Iroquois stories gives lie to the belief that you have to have brightly colored illustrations or fast-moving images to capture a child’s attention. Youngest listeners (and adults, too) will tune right in to these, especially when they hear the animal sounds. Jim Bruchac makes a great Red Squirrel, also ants....
CD 17.00

Gluskabe Stories. 1990, 80 minutes, all grades.

There he goes again (Gluskabe, not Joe), teaching us all how not to behave....
cassette 10.00

Iroquois Stories. 1988, all grades.

Joe Bruchac has a wonderful voice for stories, and knows exactly how to use it—just the right pacing, this perfectly timed pause, that lowering of pitch. And he makes a great Bear.
CD 14.00

Bruchac, Joseph (Abenaki), and Jesse Bowman Bruchac (Abenaki), The Wind Eagle and Other Abenaki Stories. 2000.

A companion to Joe Bruchac’s book of the same title, these six Gluskabi stories are accompanied by flute music and Abenaki language introductions by Jesse Bruchac.
CD 14.00

Dead Dog Café Comedy Hour. 1998, 24 15-minute episodes, high school-up.

So, Jasper Friendly Bear applied for a photography grant, didn’t get it, applied for a powwow grant, didn’t get it. Got an hour-long radio show (well, actually, 45 minutes short of an hour), which is broadcast live (sort of) from Gracie Heavy Hand's Dead Dog Café and hosted by Tom King (sort of). Each 15-minute episode contains (well, more or less):

• Gracie’s Authentic Traditional Aboriginal Recipes (includes puppy stew, fried bologna, and Kraft Dinners)
• Tom's Traditional Aboriginal Decorating Tips (includes using a stuffed moose and building a smoke-hole)
• Trust Tonto
• The Blockade Report (for tourists who want to avoid Indian blockades or maybe find them )
• Friendly Bear’s Blackout Bingo (play bingo at home, send in the card, win a nifty prize)
• What Else Do You Do? (interviews with famous Indians, including Louis Riel, maybe)
• Spin the Wheels for Authentic Indian Names
• White Wisdom and What to Do About It
• 10 Reasons Why It's Good to Have Indians in Canada
• Fireside Friendly Bear
• Indians Anonymous (12-step program for Indians who have been living white and are threatening to revert to being Indian)
• The Adventures of Darnell About Time, Band Councilor

Dead Dog Café Comedy Hour, vol. 2. 1999, 24 15-minute episodes, high school-up.

If you liked Dead Dog Cafe, you'll want to join your host Tom King (who thinks he's cerebral) and Jasper Friendly Bear and Gracie Heavy Hand, as they (among other things) give detailed instructions for making a genuine bear-claw necklace out of cashew nuts, bestow an authentic Indian name on a white person's bicycle, and scour Canada trying to find a rich Indian. Also Jasper changes the bingo number a couple times.
CD 25.00

Dead Dog Café Comedy Hour, vol. 3. 2000, 16 15-minute episodes, high school-up.

So you think you’ve heard the last from Jasper Friendly Bear, Gracie Heavy Hand, and their faithful urban Indian companion, Tom King? So you think there’s no life after Indians Anonymous and golf is only for rich white people? So you think powwow music just can’t get any better and Captain Dead Dog has had his day? Au contraire (that’s French for “on the contrary”). In volume 3, Hear how Jasper’s clever switch to Blackout Bingo saves Tom’s life, what with his cavalier attitude about the difference between fry bread and bannock. Hear Tom, still thinking he’s cerebral (urban Indians!), say ”That’s Machiavellian!” Listen as Tom comes to terms with existential thought patterns as he learns that the beauty of Native philosophy is that not everything means something. Hear Gracie suggest how to turn treaties into wallpaper and used bingo dabbers into objects d’art (that’s “art objects” in French). Hear Jasper spin the Spirit Wheel for Authentic Spirit Vegetables to go with the Authentic Indian Names for white people. Hear Gracie’s Conversational Cree for simple but useful phrases, such as “Please ask the chauffeur to bring the car around” and “How long will we be in court?” So sit back and relax, clear you mind and pretend that you’re better off than you really are. Cue the blazing fire...
CD 25.00

Dead Dog Café Comedy Hour, vol. 4. 2001, 12 15-minute episodes.

It’s the end of the road for the Dead Dog Café Comedy Hour (actually, 45 minutes short of an hour); the grant has finally run out. After almost getting killed during a game of wilderness golf, Tom is back, still reluctantly buying the coffee. So while you can (sob!), join Gracie Heavy Hand, Jasper Friendly Bear, and Tom King in their ever-popular segments, including Gracie’s Traditional Aboriginal Recipes, Tom’s Traditional Aboriginal Decorating Tips, Conversational Cree, Blackout Bingo, Trust Tonto, and What Else Do You Do? Plus Jasper’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission (“better living through elasticity”), some special surprises that involve singing (sort of), and finally (sob!)… Stay calm. Be brave. Wait for the signs.
CD 25.00

Lacapa, Kathleen (Mohawk), and Michael Lacapa (Apache/Hopi/Tewa), Antelope Woman and Less Than Half, More Than Whole. 1995, all grades.

This tape complements the books of the same name. Antelope Woman tells how the Apache people were instructed to honor all things around us, great and small. Less Than Half, More Than Whole is especially children of mixed parentage who feel “less than half,” but, who are, “like the corn, are more than whole.”
cassette 5.00

Tehanetorens/Ray Fadden (Mohawk), The Gift of the Great Spirit. 1988, all grades.

With music by the Six Nations Singers, these lesson stories, including “The Story of the Monster Bear,” are told by Mohawk elder Tehanetorens in his inimitable style.
CD 14.00

Lessons from the Animal People. 1996, 90 minutes, all grades (CD).

Dovie Thomason writes about these stories: “My Grandma Dovie told me stories... because I needed them. They are the traditional way to guide young (and not so young) lives without punishment or embarrassing confrontation. Through the mistakes, bad choices and often unruly antics of the Animal People, we are shown human weaknesses and are gently reminded to look at our own.” These are traditional teaching stories of the Animal Nations, alternating with songs by Ulali (Tuscarora, Apache/Maya).
cassette 10.00, CD 17.00

Fireside Tales: More Lessons from the Animal People. 2001, 90 minutes, all grades.

Recorded right before Midwinter, which is the traditional time for such things, these animal teaching stories were selected by Dovieís daughter, Samantha, with Iroquois social songs sung by Samantha’s father, Micky Sickles (Wolf Clan, Oneida). Stories include “Bear and Chipmunk,” “Frogís Teeth,” “Mice Make Peace,” and “Why there are Bats.”
cassette 10.00, CD 17.00

Wopila, A Giveaway: Lakota Stories. 1993, 60 minutes, grades 3-up.

These are traditional stories, with music by Lakota flutist Kevin Locke. The stories on Side 1 are cautionary tales to protect our children—“from danger, fear, monsters, and anything which threatens their well-being or self-worth.” Of these, “Iya, the Camp Eater” is especially frightening for the message it carries, as much as the story. Side 2 contains three stories of the foolish one, Iktomi—“Iktomi & the Buzzard,” “Iktomi & Ducks & Rock,” and “Iktomi Changes His Mind”—teaching us how not to behave.
CD 17.00

Walking the Choctaw Road: Stories from Red People Memory. 2003, grades 4-up.

Tingle’s twelve stories tell of ordinary people doing extraordinary things as magic brings healing, shape shifters test bravery, tragedy leads to courage and true friendships develop in the worst of places. Choctaw women make magic so that enslaved people can cross Bok Chitto and get to freedom’s side. The medicine and wisdom of an elder woman—“keep working to the good”—give a boy the courage to defeat a shape-shifter. A youngster carries the memories of his mother, and her bones, as he continues with the okla nowa, people walking, on the Trail of Tears. A widowed woman with a healing stone shows a young boy that you don’t have to be blood to be family. A child at an Indian residential school, unable to attend his brother’s funeral finds that “wherever you are, you can always find one decent person.” A twenty-year war between father and son is resolved, and when Mawmaw regains her sight, there is no more Saltypie. These are evocative tellings by and for the Okla Homma, red people, clay people “kneaded out of this place,” people who, as Tingle says, “reached across boundaries to offer a hand to those in need.”
CD 25.00

Woody, Elizabeth (Warm Springs/Wasco/Diné), Conversion: Root, Stone, Flesh, and Water.

Doris Seale wrote of Elizabeth Woody’s book of poems, Luminaries of the Humble: “With complex and exquisite precision, Woody tells how it is now for Native people, and out of what past that came to be, for us and the Earth with whom we still try to live in the proper way. Her writing can be, although not always, dense with imagery and layered with meaning, so you have to pay attention. Those meanings may not be what you had first supposed.” Even more so with her spoken poems, an “image will linger like the brightest of light on the eye as recognition tingles through the spine.” Beautiful. Thank you, Liz.
CD 15.00