After my negative response to Philip Ardagh's North American Myths & Legends - another entry in his eight-book World Book Myths & Legends Series - I was pretty sure that this title devoted to the myths and legends of South America would also prove unsatisfactory. Still, I don't come across that many collections of South American folklore, so I hoped that I would be proven wrong. Yes, 64 pages (40, excluding introductions and appendices) is completely insufficient to adequately introduce the traditions of an entire continent, but I knew that this would be a limited anthology going in. The selections themselves are engaging, although Ardagh - as with all his other titles in the series - does not specify his sources. The tales include:

How the Stars Came, a Bororo tale in which a group of naughty children escape their elders by climbing into the sky on a creeper, eventually becoming the stars...

Fire and the Jaguar, a Kayapó myth which explains how people gained fire, and how jaguar lost it...

A World of Endless Skies, a Carajá story about how humans came to live on top of the earth, rather than underneath it...

Earth, Fire, and Flood, a Tupinambá flood myth, in which the vengeful god Monan destroys his creation with fire, save for one man, and then sends the rains to heal the world...

The Inca - Chosen People of the Sun, which follows the story of the founding of the Inca Empire, through the leadership of four brothers and four sisters: Ayar Manco, Ayar Cachi, Ayar Auca, Ayar Uchu, Mama Ocllo, Mama Raua, Mama Huaco, and Mama Cora. Assuming that this tale is an authentic Inca tale, it certainly demonstrates that the human impulse to conquer other peoples and steal their land is widespread: "The Inca are the chosen people of the Sun. They need this land to grow their crops. Those already here must be made to give it up to them."

The Voyage of the Poppykettle, another Inca tale, concerning seven gnomes who flee the Spanish conquerors, aided by the agents of El Nino.

And finally, Asare and the Alligators, a Sherente myth concerning seven brothers, whose adventures help shape the world...

I was rather surprised, after Ardagh's laudable decision in North American Myths & Legends to include tales from Native, European, and African-American traditions, that this collection of tales from South America was exclusively devoted to the indigenous traditions of the continent. Surely one or two tales of Spanish or Portuguese origin would have been appropriate in an anthology meant to represent a continent so heavily influenced (for both good and ill) by Spanish or Portuguese culture? What about the tales that Africans brought to South America as slaves? I've come to the conclusion that these continent-wide anthologies are inherently flawed, but it still strikes me as odd that Ardagh's approach would have been so much more inclusive for North America, than it was for South America. ( )