Native American Native American LiteratureLiterature

English 11English 11Ms. BurnsMs. Burns

• Our American identity as we know it is a product of our past. Our class will focus on literature which reveals how we arrived at our society and culture today.

• We study Native American literature out of a respect for the indigenous cultures who were here before the European explorers as well as a respect for their cultural and literary influence throughout the years.

Historical & Cultural Context Historical & Cultural Context

• Indigenous Americans inhabited this continent before anyone else. They endured many invasions from the Spaniards for the following primary reasons:

1. land 2. gold 3. crops (all of which were plentiful)

• Once explorers and settlers decided to stay and start building the natives could do nothing although they usually tried to fight back.

• Natives had a completely different set of values and traditions:

- some wouldn’t fight back until they realized they would lose their land completely

- they lived off the land and held it in high regard; earth was the mother

- they never used more than they needed and they never wasted anything

• The settlers flagrant ways and intruding methods of desecrating the land came as a huge blow to the Native Americans.

• The Europeans also brought disease that natives were never exposed to before, which brought actual physical desecration to their people.

Storytelling & Oral TraditionStorytelling & Oral Tradition

• Long before European explorers came to North America, Native Americans had a rich literary tradition of their own. Their stories, histories, and legends were shared and preserved through oral tradition. The storyteller is one whose spirit is indispensable to the people.

• The Native Americans spoke hundreds of languages and lived in incredibly diverse societies with varied mythological beliefs.

• Despite their differences, their cultures and literary traditions had the following common elements:

They believed in the power of words and they relied on memory, rather than writing to preserve their texts

• The oral tradition was a performance and is offered to the audience as dramatic events in time.

• The storyteller is very important to culture and is one of the most

honored and respected members of the tribe/society

• The relationship between the storyteller and the audience is established through: voice emphasis, gestures, use of space, eye contact, and the audience can be representative of the characters in the story.

These oral stories include the following types of texts:

• cultural information (beliefs about social order and appropriate behavior)

• historical accounts including migrations: how people got to where they are

• lessons describe how and why things are the way they are

• creation stories and the origins of societies (beliefs about the nature of the physical world)

Some Dominant Themes & Motifs:Some Dominant Themes & Motifs:

• relationships between humans and animals

• respect and reverence for mother earth and nature

• land as the strength of the people• village/community/tribe as sovereign• cyclical patterns: renewal and continuance• importance of tribal traditions and history