Wakdjunkaga (46)

"Indeed, it is on this account that the people call me the Foolish One. They are right."

The following books will introduce you to Wakdjunkaga, who said these words in the Winnebago Trickster cycle (no. 11; see Radin below).

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Radin, Paul. The Trickster: A Study in American Indian Mythology. New York: Schocken Books, 1972.
- Landmark study of the thousand-year old cycle of 49 tales recounting the humorous exploits and misadventures of the Winnebago Trickster Wakdjunkaga. Anthropologist Radin recorded the stories from his informant, Sam Blowsnake, in 1912. Radin analyzes their significance in Native American mythology and, at the end of the book, psychologist Carl Jung discusses the Trickster figure as an archetype of the primal unconscious.
Velie, Alan R. (Ed.). American Indian Literature: An Anthology (Danny Timmons, Illus.). University of Oklahoma Press, 1991.
- Includes the Winnebago Trickster cycle with handsome line drawings by Timmons, conveying the often gentle spirit of this character.
Turner, Frederick (Ed.). The Portable North American Indian Reader. Penguin, 1977.
- If you can't find either of the above books for the full Trickster cycle, this book selects a subset of the tales in its chapter on Winnebago myths.
Ruoff, A. LaVonne Brown. Literatures of the American Indian. New York: Chelsea House, 1991.
- Chapter 3, "Telling Stories," puts these tales in the context of Native American literature as a whole.