Ghosts Dance in an Empty House and Other Stories

Ghosts Dance in an Empty House and Other Stories comprises forty-five narratives dictated by Coquelle Thompson, an Upper Coquille Athabaskan Indian residing on the Siletz Indian Reservation in Oregon, during the fall of 1935. Elizabeth D. Jacobs transcribed the stories from Thompson and selected some for intended publication. In addition to those Jacobs chose, William R. Seaburg combed through Thompson's field notebooks and chose a handful of additional stories, as well as several cognate texts Thompson told to Smithsonian Institution linguist John Peabody Harrington in 1942 and cognates from other Athabaskan and from non-Athabaskan groups in the region. This companion volume to Pitch Woman and Other Stories: The Oral Traditions of Coquelle Thompson, Upper Coquille Athabaskan Indian, which collected Thompson's myths and folktales, focuses on Thompson's semi-historical tales, narratives of historical events, ethnographic texts, and personal and family stories.