Sacred Legends

My upcoming On Spec story ‘Touch the Dead’ as well as the novel I recently completed both incorporate some aspects of Cree mythology.
I had previously found a few Cree myths online but to better understand the tales which were influencing my ‘fictional world’ I bought a copy of Sacred Legends By Carl Ray and James R Stevens.

This is an interesting collection of stories told by the Sandy Lake Cree in Canada and interesting artwork accompanies the stories. The book itself was compiled in the 70s and then updated in the 90s.

I’ve read some of the myths elsewhere but most were tales I had never encountered before. At the beginning of the book there is also a section on how the Sandy Lake society functions — which traditions have been lost and which have remained (as of the 70s). The author updates this information with a bit of a comparison as to how the situation has changed by the 90s. It then goes into the various myths, complete with a calendar, glossary and such. The tales themselves are divided by subject matter.

Pretty cool material in here… some of the stories are quite strange and many are disturbing.