An Overview of Native American Oral Literature::

Transmission of Oral Texts

Tribal memory was a crucial component of oral narratives and for ensuring that entire cultures did not disappear. Because a culture's songs, prayers, myths and ceremonies were preserved through time through tribal memory, the task of preserving and transmitting such things was of immense importance. It was a task that began at an early age. Here is the Dakota writer Charles Eastman writing of his childhood in Sioux country:

"Almost every evening a myth, or a true story of some deed done in the past, was narrated by one of the parents or grandparents, while the boy listened with parted lips and glistening eyes. On the following evening, he was usually required to repeat it. If he was not an apt scholar, he struggled long with his task; but, as a rule, the Indian boy was a good listener and has a good memory, so that the stories were tolerably well mastered. The household became his audience, by which he was alternately criticized and applauded" (Eastman 1902: 42-43).¹

Notes::

• 1 - Charles A. Eastman. 1902. Indian Boyhood. New York: Dover.