Mythological forces and transforming narratives in native American literary translation

This work provides a glimpse into the translation of Native American oral narratives as well as contemporary Native American literary texts for those working in the field of translation. Literary translation in general converges on, among other things, intercultural competence, historical and sociological knowledge and linguistic mastery of a given Source and Target language. Here it is suggested that these fields comprise a necessary knowledge base from which to approach Native oral narratives and contemporary Native American literary translation and their realia. Additionally the issue of contextual or mythic identities attached to Native people is addressed before pragmatic techniques for the optimization of the translation process are explored. Individual translators and cooperative translation teams provide the working translation scenario for the first and second translation trials. The oral narrative Coyote and Old Woman Bullhead, which was translated into English by Julian Lang, serves as the Source Text for these translations. Soul-Catcher by Louis Owens is the contemporary text applied to the third trial performed in cooperative translation teams. After each trial the results of the translations are examined and evaluated. This project invites further exploration by translation scholars into the fascinating but thus far rather neglected topic of the translation of American Indian narratives.