It is the time when the snows are deep and the wind's voice circles the big Bear Clan longhouse. It is Tsiotorkowa, the Coldest Moon, when the nights are the longest....

This evening people have come crowding in from the other four longhouses that are also part of this village surrounded by cornfields. Almost all the people of the clans of the Turtle, the Wolf, the Snipe, and the Eel have come as guests.... They are here because of the man in his late middle years who sits now by the fire, looking around the circle of expectant faces. His name is Crosses Many Rivers.... Wherever he travels, his name precedes him and every longhouse opens its door to him, for he is a story teller.

Like Crosses Many Rivers, introduced in The Boy Who Lived with the Bears and Other Iroquois Stories, Joseph Bruchac has earned a...