Quintasket was an enrolled member of the Colville Reservation in Washington; she published under the name "Mourning Dove," Humishuma, a Colville-Okanogan name. Her novel Cogewea was published in 1927, which means it will be entering the public domain soon (on January 1 2023); her book of traditional Coyote stories was published in 1933. Here is a photograph circa 1915 from the Wikipedia article about her.
Willis Regier included this book in his anthology of five Masterpieces of American Indian Literature, which is also available at the Internet Archive, and the introduction to Coyote Stories in Regier's book is provided by Jay Miller, who provides a detailed, and deeply moving, account of Quintasket's life and work. He also includes information about Salishan storytelling traditions, especially with regard to Coyote stories.
Regier also included American Indian Stories by Zitkala-Ša in this book; later on I'll be writing a post about another one of Zitkala-Ša's books, Old Indian Legends, which is an important early written source for stories about Iktomi, the Sioux Spider trickster.
Meanwhile, I hope you will enjoy reading Mourning Dove's stories, and also learning about her life; she was a remarkable person and deserves to better known IMO. Thanks to the Internet Archive, these resources are just a click away, with the power of Controlled Digital Lending... and let's hope we can get a positive ruling on the lawsuit about that coming in 2023!
by Mourning Dove
edited by Willis Regier
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