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Native American Oral Tradition. The Origins of Literature. The origin of what we call American literature predates the arrival of Europeans in the Americas. Oral tradition is the foundation of literature
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The Origins of Literature • The origin of what we call American literature predates the arrival of Europeans in the Americas. • Oral tradition is the foundation of literature • Early rock carvings and petroglyphs are perhaps the first examples of written language
Newspaper Rock (UT) petroglyphs
Words are powerful Words are sacred Words are magical: they can bring about physical change in the world The Oral Tradition
The Oral Tradition • Words must be spoken with great care • The speaker must be careful, clear & deliberate, for he will be taken at his word • There is a connection between the sacred & the verbal; to be careless in the presence of words is to violate a fundamental morality
Three Stories The Arrowmaker The Kiowa Brothers The Death of Chief Sitting Bear
The Arrowmaker If an arrow is well made, it will have tooth marks upon it. That is how you know. The Kiowas made fine arrows and straightened them in their teeth. Then they drew them to the bow to see if they were straight. Once there was a man and his wife. They were alone at night in their tipi. By the light of the fire the man was making arrows. After a while he caught sight of something. There was a small opening in the tipi where two hides were sewn together. Someone was there on the outside, looking in. The man went on with his work, but he said to his wife: “Someone is standing outside. Do not be afraid. Let us talk easily, as of ordinary things.” He took up an arrow and straightened it in his teeth; then, as it was right for him to do, he drew it to the bow and took aim, first in this direction and then in that. And all the while he was talking, as if to his wife. But this is how he spoke: “I know that you are there on the outside, for I can feel your eyes upon me. If you are a Kiowa, you will understand what I am saying, and you will speak your name.” But there was no answer, and the man went on in the same way, pointing the arrow all around. At last his aim fell upon the place where his enemy stood, and he let go of the string. The arrow went straight to the enemy’s heart. From The Way to Rainy Mountain by N. Scott Momaday. University of New Mexico Press, 1969.
The Arrowmaker • The Arrowmaker and his wife survive not because of the arrow but rather because of language and words. • He is “a man made of words”– his survival is contingent on his knowledge of language and his enemy’s lack of knowledge. • The story illustrates the importance and power of language in the oral tradition.
The Kiowa Brothers On a raid against the Utes, one of two brothers was captured. The other, alone and of his own will, stole into the Ute camp and tried to set his brother free, but he too was captured. The chief of the Utes had respect for the man’s bravery, and he made a bargain with him. If he could carry his brother on his back and walk upon a row of greased buffalo heads without falling to the ground, both brothers would be given horses and allowed to return in safety to their home. The man bore his brother on his back and walked upon the heads of the buffalo and kept his footing. The Ute chief was true to his word, and the brothers returned to their own people on horseback. From The Way to Rainy Mountain by N. Scott Momaday. University of New Mexico Press, 1969.
Kiowa Brothers • The chief is true to his word even though he has nothing to gain and everything to lose by doing so. • The chief fulfills his promise of freeing the brothers andgiving the valuable commodity of horses to the brothers. • The chief never for a moment considers or would consider going back on his word.
The Death of Sitting Bear Set-angya, or Sitting Bear, was chief of the Kaitsenko Society, the Crazy Dog or dog soldier organization of the Kiowa tribe. It was composed of ten men only, the ten most brave. They were the first and last security of the people. If they should die, everyone should die. Each one of them wore a long sash, so long it trailed the ground, and carried a sacred arrow. In the time of battle, each of these Kaitsenko warriors must, by means of his sacred arrow, fix his sash to the ground, and he must stand his ground to the death.
Set-angya’s son was killed on a raid in Texas, and Set-angya went there and gathered up the bones of his son, and from then on he led a hunting horse that bore the bones of his son on its back. At night he placed the bones in a ceremonial tipi and invited all the people, saying, “Come, come. My son is at home tonight. Come and visit him. Come and pay your respects.”
Set-angya was imprisoned at Fort Sill. Along with two other chiefs, White Bear and Big Tree, he was placed in the bed of a wagon, to be taken to the railroad, then sent to Fort Richardson to be tried for the raid on the Warren wagon train. As they were going along in the wagon on the grounds of the fort, Set-angya began to sing the song of the Kaitsenko. At this, the others became very upset, because that song was sacred. It could only be sung in the face of death. And when he had sung the song, he said to Set-tainte and Big Tree, “You see that cottonwood on the side of the road ahead? By the time we reach that tree, I will be dead.” He then pulled a knife, which he had somehow hidden about him, and he attacked the teamster, stabbed him in the leg. The guards, riding close beside the wagon, shot him dead. But he was true to his word. Adapation of a story from The Ancient Child by N. Scott Momaday. New York: Harper Perennial, 1999.
“By the time we reach that tree, I will be dead.” “But he was true to his word.” The story illustrates the sacred nature of language. The Kaitsenko Society (Crazy Dogs or Dog Soldiers) Chief Sitting Bear The Death of Sitting Bear
Myths • The heart of the oral tradition is the story. • Myths: traditional stories passed down from generation to generation, which explain why the world is the way it is. • They characteristically involve immortal beings and contain magic or the supernatural
Myths • Myths attempt to explain things such as • Natural phenomenon • The origin of humans • The customs & religious rights of a people • Events beyond people’s control
Myths • Myths teach the values and ideals of a culture -what that culture holds as important. • Myths are the stories that a culture uses to create coherence in its life, values, and symbols.
Myths • In myths a culture tells its story of origin and its understanding of the major issues of life and death. • Myths are not stories in isolation: they express a culture’s whole life—all that it is and all that it values.
Myths • Myths and legends are not told merely for enjoyment, education or amusement: they are believed. • They give concrete form to a set of beliefs and traditionsthat link people today to ancestors from centuries and millennia past.
Creation Myths • Myths and legends of human creation and origin reflect in myriad ways a common belief that people are a living part of the natural world, brother and sister to the grain and the trees, the buffalo and the bear.
Genesis: The Christian Creation Myth • God is the creator of mankind; mankind is granted dominion/power over all other creatures on earth • God created Adam (man) out of clay/earth
Genesis: The Christian Creation Myth • God created Eve (woman) from Adam • Adam & Eve can have everything they want except fruit from the tree of knowledge (eating from this tree represents a desire to be God-like) • It is Eve’s (woman’s) weakness that causes their expulsion from the Garden of Eden
Kiowa Origin Myth “You know, everything had to begin, and this is how it was: the Kiowas came one by one into the world through a hollow log. There were many more than now, but not all of them got out. There was a woman whose body was swollen up with child, and she got stuck in the log. After that, no one could get through, and that is why the Kiowas are a small tribe in number. They looked around and saw the world. It made them glad to see so many things. They called themselves Kwuda, “coming out.” From The Way to Rainy Mountain – N. Scott Momaday
from The World on the Turtle’s Back– Iroquois creation myth “In the middle of the Sky-World there grew a Great Tree which was not like any of the trees that we know. It was tremendous; it had grown there forever. It had enormous roots that spread out from the floor of the Sky-World. And on its branches there were many different kinds of leaves and different kinds of fruits and flowers. The tree was not supposed to be marked or mutilated by any of the beings who dwelt in the Sky-World. It was a sacred tree that stood at the center of the universe.” (text, p 23)
“The woman decided that she wanted some bark from one of the roots of the Great Tree—perhaps as a food or as a medicine, we don’t know. She told her husband this. He didn’t like the idea. He knew it was wrong. But she insisted, and he gave in. So he dug a hole among the roots of this great sky tree, and he bared some of its roots. But the floor of the Sky-World wasn’t very thick, and he broke a hole through it. He was terrified, for he had never expected to find empty space underneath the world”
“But his wife was filled with curiosity. He wouldn’t get any of the roots for her, so she set out to do it herself. She bent over and she looked down, and she saw the ocean far below…She fell through the hole…And so she began to fall toward the great ocean far below…
from The World on the Turtle’s Back– Iroquois creation myth “They [the twins] buried their mother. And from her grave grew the plant which the people still use. From her head grew the corn, the beans, and the squash— ‘our supporters, the three sisters.’ And from her heart grew the sacred tobacco, which the people still use in the ceremonies and by whose upward-floating smoke they send thanks. The women call her ‘our mother,’ and they dance and sing in rituals so that the corn, the beans, and the squash may grow to feed the people.” (text, p 26)
Verbal Equations Songs, Spells, Prayers
Verbal Equations • Spells, prayers and songs that are characteristically brief, and contain patterns, repetition and formulas, all of which make them easier to remember. • Verbal equations are recited at specific, significant times for an intended purpose (birth, marriage, travel, sickness, hunting, harvest time). • Spell: a set of directions • Prayer: a request • Song: a description
The Dream Last night I dreamed of you. I dreamed you were walking on the shore pebbles and I was walking with you. last night I dreamed of you. and as though I were awake, I dreamed that I followed you, that I wanted you like a young seal, that you were wanted by me the way a hunter wants a young seal that dives when it feels it is being followed. that’s how you were wanted by me, who dreamed of you. - Ammassalik Eskimo
Woman’s Song A loon I thought it was But it was My love’s Splashing oar To Sault Ste. Marie He has departed My love Has gone on before me Never again Can I see him - Chippewa
Song Early morning dawning green, Ah…is the willow so green? In the green fields, You gave me your love. - Quechua
Medicine Man’s Prayer Listen, my dream! This you told me should be done. This you said should be the way. You said it would cure the sick. Help me now. Do not lie to me. Help me, Sun person. Help me to cure this sick man. - Blackfeet
A Song of the Buffalo Dance One I have wounded, yonder he moves, Yonder he moves, bleeding at the mouth. One I have wounded, yonder he moves, Yonder he moves, with staggering steps. One I have wounded, yonder he moves, Yonder he falls, yonder he falls. - Omaha
Prayer to the Deceased Naked you came from Earth the Mother. Naked you return to her. May a good wind be your road. - Omaha
War Song clear the way in a sacred manner I come the earth is mine - Sioux
The moon and the year Travel and pass away: Also the day, also the wind. Also the flesh passes away To the place of its quietness. - Maya The Moon and the Year
