Candace Slater

Three stars for having information on the anthropology of the Encantado belief system that is available nowhere else that I know of in English. Two stars missing for extremely offensive paternalistic attitudes towards another culture.

Ms Slater was made to feel at home among the people she studied, and she rewarded them by consistently belittling their cultures and beliefs throughout this book. She alternately insults and condescends to village inhabitants, and fails to make blatantly obvious intercultural comparisons between the Encantado and the European Faerie tradition. On the other hand, she writes the oral folk tales with grace and poetry and elegantly links the myth cycle of the dolphins together.

As you can tell I have very mixed feelings on this book and this writer. If you buy it, read it for the information on the dolphin shapeshifters and not for the writer's deplorable attitude towards another culture.… (mais)