Between Worlds: Interpreters, Guides, and Survivors

Spanning the globe and the centuries, Frances Karttunen tells the stories of sixteen men and women who served as interpreters and guides to conquerors, missionaries, explorers, soldiers, and anthropologists. These interpreters acted as uncomfortable bridges between two worlds; their own marginality, the fact that they belonged to neither world,underscores the complexity and tension between cultures meeting for the first time. The interpreters include:o Do–a Marina (La Malinche), who interpreted for Cortes in the conquest of Mexicoo Sacajawea, who accompanied Lewis and Clark on their expeditiono Sarah Winnemucca, a U.S. army scout and Washington lobbyist for the Northern Paiuteso Gaspar Antonio Chi, Maya Interpreter General for Yucatano Guaman Poma de Ayala,  eyewitness reporter of the destruction of Inca cultureo Charles Eastman, a Sioux physician at Wounded Kneeo Larin Paraske, an informant for Finnish ethnographerso Do–a Luz Jimenez, Diego Rivera’s model and a native informant to anthropologistso Mar’a Sabina, the Mazatec mushroom shaman who became a celebrity in the drug culture    of the 1960so Ishi, the last surviving Yahi Indian.