An Overview of Native American Oral Literature::

Myths

The Importance of Storytelling

The importance and joy of storytelling in Native American cultures is expressed in the following quote by the Ojibwa author George Copway:

"There is not a lake or mountain that has not connected with it some story of delight or wonder, and nearly every beast and bird is the subject of the story-teller, being said to have transformed itself at some prior time into some mysterious formation - of men going to live in the stars, and of imaginary beings in the air, whose rushing passage roars in the distant whirlwinds.

"I have known some Indians who have commenced to narrate legends and stories in the month of October, and not end until quite late in the spring, sometimes not till the month of May, and on every evening of this long term tell a new story.

"Some of these stories are most exciting, and so intensely interesting, that I have seen children during their relation, whose tears would flow most plentifully, and their breasts heave with thoughts too big for utterance.

"Night after night for weeks I have sat and eagerly listened to these stories. The days following, the characters would haunt me at every step, and every moving leaf would seem to be a voice of a spirit" (Copway 1850: 95-96).¹

Though Copway was speaking of a nineteenth century childhood, contemporary authors such as Leslie Marmon Silko and N. Scott Momaday speak of a similar childhood listening to tribal and family histories, legends and sacred stories at the feet of their grandparents or other elder relatives. Traditional stories, songs and prayers ground tribal members in their tribal customs, values and beliefs. Through them, individuals learn about the world and their place in it, how to behave, and how to live with others in nature. Spoken in the indigenous tongue, they preserved a tribe’s culture, history and philosophy and language - something that was to become vitally important during the frought period of European contact and suppression.

When Indian culture was forced underground during the particularly tumultous period of the late nineteenth and early to mid twentieth centuries, traditional oral narratives ensured that many tribal cultures did not disappear altogether.

Notes::

• 1 - George Copway. 1850. The Traditional History and Characteristic Sketches of the Ojibway Nation. London: Gilpin.