The Sugpiaq have been living for ten thousand years on Kodiak Island, in the southern part of Alaska.In 1871, a young French explorer, Alphonse Pinart, landed there. He collected the stories and rituals of this fishing and seal-hunting peoplein numerous notebooks. In them, we discover animals that turn into human beings; the loves of brave hunters and fishermen; and the difficult and amazing daily life of women and children. The tales gathered here evoke all the poetry of the Sugpiaq's beliefs: according to their legends, light was brought by a crow into three little boxes, the moon wears a mask, and stars are human beings putting their only eyes to holes in the sky so that everybody on earth can see them shining. But these myths are also about love, bravery, family and magic...

Histoires des Sugpiakis one book from the series "Contes et mythes de la Terre", which introduces young readers to tribal culturesand the marvelous stories their elders tell their children. Each book begins with the story of the ethnologist who collected the tales, followed by a preface about the people and culture addressed in the book. Every tale is placed in its context, and annotated with short commentaries that shed light on the daily life and the beliefs and rituals of somelesser-known people living at far ends of the world.

Also available in the same series: Histoires des Jawi, un peuple de Thailande(Stories of the Jawi, People of Thailand); Histoires des Trumai, un peuple d'Amazonie(Stories of the Trumai, People of Amazonia); Histoires des Maori, un peuple d'Oceanie (Stories of the Maori, People of Oceania).