Book Review: The Anguish of Snails: Native American Folklore in the West

For half a century Barre Toelken has studied Native American cultures in the West. In this volume he offers a perspective on how outsiders can approach the study of Native Americans using methods developed by the discipline of folklore. In doing so he displays a rare humility, exemplified by the book\u27s title. The structure of its shell, he tells us, records the ongoing responses of the living snail ; over time these form patterns whose meanings can be explored. Taking the snail shell as his metaphor for culture, he proposes that just as we can learn from studying the patterns in the shell the \u27agonies\u27 experienced by snails,\u27 so, too, we as outsiders can learn from the study of Native American cultural expressions something about a group\u27s beliefs and assumptions-its anguish, that is, the accumulated emotional load articulated in traditional contexts