Maidu traditional narratives include myths, legends, tales, and oral histories preserved by the Maidu

Maidu

The Maidu are a group of Native Americans who live in Northern California. They reside in the central Sierra Nevada, in the drainage area of the Feather and American Rivers...

, Konkow, and Nisenan people of eastern Sacramento Valley and foothills in northeastern California.

Maidu oral literature aligned the Maidu closely with their central California neighbors, such as the Wintu

Wintu

The Wintu are Native Americans who live in what is now Northern California. They are part of a loose association of peoples known collectively as the Wintun . Others are the Nomlaki and the Patwin...

 and Valley and Sierra Miwok

Valley and Sierra Miwok

The Plains and Sierra Miwok , were the largest group of Miwok Native American people...

, but also showed influences from the Great Basin

Great Basin

The Great Basin is the largest area of contiguous endorheic watersheds in North America and is noted for its arid conditions and Basin and Range topography that varies from the North American low point at Badwater Basin to the highest point of the contiguous United States, less than away at the...

 Northern Paiute

Paiute

Paiute refers to three closely related groups of Native Americans — the Northern Paiute of California, Idaho, Nevada and Oregon; the Owens Valley Paiute of California and Nevada; and the Southern Paiute of Arizona, southeastern California and Nevada, and Utah.-Origin of name:The origin of...

 and Washoe

Washoe people

The Washoe are a Great Basin tribe of Native Americans, living in California and Nevada. The name "Washoe" is derived from the autonym waashiw meaning "people from here" in the Washo language .-Territory:Washoe people have lived in the Great Basin for at least the last 6000 years...

 to the east. (See also Traditional narratives (Native California)

Traditional narratives (Native California)

The Traditional Narratives of Native California are the legends, tales, and oral histories that survive as fragments of what was undoubtedly once a vast unwritten literature.-History of Studies:...

.)

On-line examples of Maidu narratives

• "The California Indians" by Stephen Powers
  Stephen Powers
  *This article is about the 19th-century journalist and historian of California Indians.Stephen Powers was an American journalist, ethnographer, and historian of Native American tribes in California. He traveled extensively to study and learn about their cultures, and wrote notable accounts of them...
  
   (1874)
• Dawn of the World by C. Hart Merriam
  Clinton Hart Merriam
  Clinton Hart Merriam was an American zoologist, ornithologist, entomologist and ethnographer.Known as "Hart" to his friends, Dr. Clinton Hart Merriam was born in New York City in 1855. His father, Clinton Levi Merriam, was a U.S. congressman. He studied biology and anatomy at Yale University and...
  
   (1910)
• "Maidu Texts" by Roland B. Dixon
• The North American Indian by Edward S. Curtis
  Edward S. Curtis
  Edward Sheriff Curtis was a photographer of the American West and of Native American peoples.-Early life:...
  
  (1924)
• Myths and Legends of California and the Old Southwest by Katharine Berry Judson

Sources for Maidu narratives

• Azbill, Henry. 1969. "World Maker". Indian Historian 2(1):20. (Myth including Earth Diver episode.)
• Azbill, Henry. 1969. "How Death Came to the People". Indian Historian 2(2):13-14. (Myth remembered from the narrator's grandmother.)
• Curtis, Edward S. 1907-1930. The North American Indian. 20 vols. Plimpton Press, Norwood, Massachusetts. (Two myths collected from Jack Franco, vol. 14, pp. 173-176.)
• Dixon, Roland B. 1900. "Some Coyote Stories from the Maidu Indians of California". Journal of American Folklore 13:267-270. (Four narratives.)
• Dixon, Roland B. 1903. "System and Sequence in Maidu Mythology". Journal of American Folklore 16:32-36. (Analysis.)
• Dixon, Roland B. 1912. Maidu Texts. American Ethnological Society Publications 4:1-241. (Myths and tales collected from Tom Young (Hanc'ibyjim) in 1902-1903.)
• Erdoes, Richard, and Alfonso Ortiz. 1984. American Indian Myths and Legends. Pantheon Books, New York. (Retelling of a narrative from Dixon 1904, pp. 290-291.)
• Gifford, Edward Winslow, and Gwendoline Harris Block. 1930. California Indian Nights. Arthur H. Clark, Glendale, California. (Four previously published narratives, pp. 85-91, 136-139, 158-161, 180-181, 198, 240-251, 273-274, 280-283.)
• Judson, Katharine Berry. 1912. Myths and Legends of California and the Old Southwest. A. C. McClurg, Chicago. (Three myths, including Orpheus, pp. 50, 54, 70-71.)
• Kroeber, Alfred L. 1929. "The Valley Nisenan". University of California Publications in American Archaeology and Ethnology 24:253-290. Berkeley. (Myths obtained from Tom Cleanso in 1929.)
• Kroeber, Theodora. 1959. The Inland Whale. University of California Press, Berkeley. (Retelling of a traditional narrative with commentary, pp. 69-73, 175-178.)
• Loeb, Edwin M. 1933. "The Eastern Kuksu Cult". University of California Publications in American Archaeology and Ethnology 33:139-232. Berkeley. (Notes on mythology, pp. 157-159, 179, 191, 197, 203-206.)
• Luthin, Herbert W. 2002. Surviving through the Days: A California Indian Reader. University of California Press, Berkeley. (Retranslation of a myth previously published in Dixon 1912, pp. 248-259.)
• Margolin, Malcolm. 1993. The Way We Lived: California Indian Stories, Songs, and Reminiscences. First edition 1981. Heyday Books, Berkeley, California. (Five myths, pp. 38-40, 89-90, 125-126, 148-154, from Dixon 1902, 1912.)
• Merriam, C. Hart. 1910. The Dawn of the World: Myths and Weird Tales Told by the Mewan Indians of California. Arthur H. Clark, Cleveland, Ohio. Reprinted as The Dawn of the World: Myths and Tales of the Miwok Indians of California, in 1993 with an introduction by Lowell J. Bean, University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln. (Several narratives.)
• Powers, Stephen. 1877. Tribes of California. Contributions to North American Ethnology, vol. 3. Government Printing Office, Washington, D.C. Reprinted with an introduction by Robert F. Heizer in 1976, University of California Press, Berkeley. (Maiduan narratives, pp. 287, 290-305, 339-345.)
• Shipley, William. 1963. Maidu Texts and Dictionary. University of California Publications in Linguistics No. 33. Berkeley. (Narratives collected in 1956-1959.)
• Shipley, William. 1991. The Maidu Indian Myths and Stories of Hanc'ibyjim. Heyday Books, Berkeley, California. (New translations of narratives originally published by Dixon in 1912.)
• Spencer, D. L. 1908. "Notes on the Maidu Indians of Butte County, California". Journal of American Folklore 21:242-245. (Includes one narrative.)
• Swann, Brian. 1994. Coming to Light: Contemporary Translations of the Native Literatures of North America. Random House, New York. ("Coyote the Spoiler" and "The Sister Who Married the Stars," recorded by Roland Dixon in 1902-1903, pp. 749-763.)
• Thompson, Stith. 1929. Tales of the North American Indians. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts. (Creation and Theft of Fire myths, pp. 24-30, 40-42, from Dixon 1905.)
• Uldall, Hans Jorgen, and William Shipley. 1966. Nisenan Texts and Dictionary. University of California Publications in Linguistics No. 46. Berkeley. (Narratives collected by Uldall in 1930-1932.)