The Lariat: And Other Writings

by Jaime de Angulo, David Miller

One of the most colorful and captivating writers of the twentieth century, Jaime de Angulo came to America to become a cowboy, not an author. And he did become a cowboy — and a doctor, and a psychologist, and a highly regarded anthropologist. However, it was as a writer that he ultimately found his true calling. His stories uniquely represented the bohemian sensibility of the time, and he was known for infusing intellectualism into his coyote tales and shamanic mysticism. So vivid were his tales that Ezra Pound called him “the American Ovid,” and William Carlos Williams claimed that de Angulo was “one of the most outstanding writers I have ever encountered.”
The Lariat, which may well be his most important piece of fiction, is highlighted in this prize collection, along with other writings that have long been unavailable.

208 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1974

About the author

Jaime de Angulo (1887–1950) was a linguist, novelist, and ethnomusicologist in the western United States. He was born in Paris of Spanish parents. He came to America in 1905 to become a cowboy, and eventually arrived in San Francisco on the eve of the great 1906 earthquake. He lived a picaresque life including stints as a cowboy, medical doctor and psychologist. He survived a suicide attempt after cutting his throat from ear to ear in Berkeley. He became a linguist who contributed to the knowledge of certain Northern California Indian languages, as well as some in Mexico.
He began his career at the University of California, Berkeley in the early 1920s, shortly after his marriage to L. S. (“Nancy”) Freeland. During this period he and his wife lived among many native Californian tribes, often becoming fully integrated into their daily lives, in an attempt to study their cultures, languages and music. As a linguist he contributed to the knowledge of more than a dozen native Northern Californian and Mexican languages and music-systems. De Angulo was particularly interested in the semantics of grammatical systems of the tribes he studied, but he was also a skilled phonetician and a pioneer in the study of North American ethnomusicology, particularly in his recordings of native music. De Angulo corresponded with Franz Boas, Alfred L. Kroeber, and Edward Sapir, and received considerable support for his fieldwork from Boas’s Committee on American Native Languages.
In the end, de Angulo’s Bohemian lifestyle kept him from pursuing a normal academic career, and his involvement in Native American research effectively came to an end following the death of his son Alvar in an automobile accident in 1933 and his retreat to an isolated hilltop ranch at Big Sur. At this point his writings took a wild turn into fiction and poetry. Much of his fictional work attempted to recognize and embrace the native "coyote tales", or the trickster wisdom inherent in native storytelling. Ezra Pound called him "the American Ovid" and William Carlos Williams "one of the most outstanding writers I have ever encountered." de Angulo also went on to tutor numerous famous authors including Jack Spicer in linguistics, and Robert Duncan in North American shamanic sorcery; he appears as a character in Jack Kerouac's books.
Perceptions of de Angulo swing wildly; he is seen alternately as a gifted but irresponsible and failed amateur, to an ‘‘Old Coyote,’’ an anarchist hero and talented subversive . De Angulo shaped and diversified the scholarly picture of the native Californian landscape. He was friend and colleague to poets, composers, and scholars such as Harry Partch, Henry Miller, Robinson Jeffers, Henry Cowell, Carl Jung, D. H. Lawrence, and many others.

Reviews

[Luke Coughlin]

De Angulo's work is a joy; his openmindedness, his joi de vivre, his sharp recollections and pained yet sweet memorialization of his childhood calls to mind authors like Bruno Schulz and William Saroyan. His carefree, casual language is Whitmanesque, as is his posture of celebration and curiosity. He is a wonderful example of the best of the literary attitude that accompanied the westward expansion of the United States. And his anthropology, his love of myth and deep involvement in the culture of the California Indians, is revelatory and fascinating in its own right.

[Reading in the Clouds]

Very relevant, in particular the first story on early California

[Aaronhagan]

A must read for those who have had the the opportunity to explore Big Sur and for those with an interest in Native American folklore. Jaime de Angulo weaves American Indian and western storytellying masterfully.

[Bill Gibson]

Now is it wrong to read these stories? Some folks say so.