Five years after rescuing an orphaned infant from the Great Chicago Fire and raising the child as her own daughter, Lucy Hathaway encounters Randoph Higgins, a prominent banker, who turns out to be the father of her little girl.

"Surveys the traditions of Native American elegiac expression over several centuries. Krupat covers a variety of oral performances of loss and renewal, including the Condolence Rites of the Iroquois and the memorial ceremony of the Tlingit people known as koo'eex, examining as well a number of Ghost Dance songs, which have been reinterpreted in culturally specific ways by many different tribal nations. Krupat treats elegiac "farewell" speeches of...