Most North Americans experience mythology by way of translations of classical texts, and surprisingly few of us are familiar with Coyote, Spider Woman, Water Jar Boy, Falling Sky Woman, or the epic of the Blessingway -- to name just a few of the stories retold in this collection of significant myths of Native North America.David Leeming and Jake Page, building on the success of their Goddess: Myths of the Female Divine and God: Myths of the Male Divine, have provided an introduction and commentary on seventy-two myths drawn from a variety of cultures and language groups. They honor the Native pantheons, cosmologies, heroes, and heroines first as cultural expressions, then as variations on other mythic narratives to which they may be related, and ultimately as expressions of the larger human experience of mythmaking. In the process Leeming and Page reveal much of the relationship between rituals, religious traditions (especially shamanism), and the myths they have chosen to retell.This literary anthology brings North American Indian mythology for the first time into the mainstream of world mythology. Academic and general readers will find "The Mythology of Native North America" appealing and accessible both for study and in their personal libraries.