Editing Always Coming Home (section)

==Summary==
The book is divided into two parts: The first part consists mostly of Kesh texts and records of oral performances, interspersed with Pandora's commentary, accounts of a few aspects of Kesh life, and personal essays. The longest text is a personal history narrated by a woman called ''Stone Telling''.  Stone Telling's autobiography fills less than a third of the book, told in three sections with large gaps filled with other material.  The second part, called "The Back of the Book", contains a few Kesh texts but consists mostly of Pandora's accounts of various aspects of Kesh life.

Stone Telling recounts how she spent her childhood with her mother's people in the Valley, as a very young woman lived several years with her father's people in The City, and escaped from it with her daughter, who was born there. The two societies are contrasted through her narrative: the Kesh are peaceable and self-organized, whereas the Condor people of The City are rigid, patriarchal, hierarchical, militaristic, and expansionist. During the lifetime of Stone Telling, both The City and the Valley change, and for a time one changes the other. There are traces of this arc in other parts of the book.

The next longest piece in the main part, in the section "Eight Life Stories", is the novelette "The Visionary", which was published as a stand-alone story in ''[[Omni (magazine)|Omni]]'' in 1984.<ref>{{cite web|title=Publication: Omni, October 1984|work=Internet Speculative Fiction Database|url=http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?59903}}</ref> This part also includes history and legends, myths, plays, a chapter of a novel, and song lyrics and poetry.{{efn|Le Guin also separately published a Kesh-like spiritual poem "Totem", relating to the Mole Society (a cult), in her poetry collection ''Hard Words''.}} Some editions of the book were accompanied by a tape of Kesh music and poetry.

A number of these are attributed by Pandora to a Kesh woman named ''Little Bear Woman'';<ref name=LittleBear group=lower-alpha>The name ''Intrumo'' [ɪntrʌmɔ] "Little Bear Woman" is an exact equivalent of ''Ursula'', which is Latin for "little she-bear": [https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.04.0059%3Aentry%3Dursa ''ursa'' "a she-bear"] + [[wiktionary:en:-ula|''-ula'']] fem. form of [[wiktionary:en:-ulus|''-ulus'']] "diminutive"; in Kesh the analysis is ''in-'' "little", ''trum'' "bear", ''-o'' "female".</ref><ref>{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=1HzdkG3ZqFoC&q=%22Little+Bear+Woman%22+%22Ursula+K.+Le+Guin%22&pg=PA258 |title=Always Coming Home |isbn=9780520227354 |edition=2001 |via=Google Books|last1=Le Guin |first1=Ursula K. |last2=Barton |first2=Todd |last3=Chodos-Irvine |first3=Margaret |last4=Hersh |first4=George |date=27 February 2001 }}</ref> these are:
* Shahugoten. ''As told by Little Bear Woman of Sinshan to the Editor'' pp.&nbsp;57–59 [a legend]
* Coming Home to Up the Hill House. ''By Little Bear Woman'' p.&nbsp;258 [a poem]
* The Writer to the Morning in Up the Hill House in Sinshan. ''By Little Bear Woman'' p.&nbsp;258 [a poem]
* A Song to Up the Hill House in Sinshan. ''By Little Bear Woman'' p.&nbsp;259 [a poem]
* [https://www.ursulakleguin.com/kesh-maps Some of the paths around Sinshan Creek]. A Kesh map of the watershed of Sinshan Creek, ''given to the Editor by Little Bear Woman'' of Sinshan.

"The Back of the Book", about a fifth of the number of pages, presents cultural lore, with the format and attributions or annotations that an [[ethnography|ethnographic fieldworker]] might make. It includes discussions of village layout and landscaping, family and professional guilds, recipes, medical care, yearly ritual dances, and language.