Beginning in 1907, the anthropologist Robert H. Lowie visited the Crow Indians at their reservation in Montana. He listened to tales that for many generations had been told around campfires in winter. Vivid tales of Old-Man-Coyote in his various guises; heroic accounts of Lodge-Boy and the Thunderbirds; supernatural stories about Raven-Face and the Spurned Lover; and other tales involving the Bear-Woman, the Offended Turtle, the Skeptical Husband--all these were recorded by Lowie. They were originally published in 1918 in an Anthropological Paper by the American Museum of Natural History.

Myths and Traditions of the Crow Indians is now reprinted with a new introduction by Peter Nabokov. These concretely detailed accounts served the Crow Indians as entertainers, moral lessons, cultural records, and guides to the workings of the universe.