Literature

Importance of orality

visual (word pictures, parables)

proximity

memory enhancing devices

story telling as performance

ordering isn't "set in stone"

isn't by rote memorization (not "word for word")

poly-vocality (audience may participate in the telling)

Majority culture interpretation

putting Native stories into print (fixed form)

romantic/exotic Indian

savage Indian 

doomed Indian 

Native literature

print is relatively new

1968 - estimate that there were only 9 Native American novels!

today over 300

What is Native American literature?

by Indians?

about Indians?

both?

traditional vs. contemporary

 

Forms of storytelling - ritual dramas, songs, narratives, speeches, life histories

 

Guidelines

Velie (1991)

functional - an educational tool to teach beliefs and values

Treuer (2006) - themes

dislocation

search for self

importance of land

use of traditional materials

non-linear structure

Ruoff (1991) - themes

humans must live in harmony with the physical and spiritual universe

deep reverence for the land

emphasis on direction (4, medicine wheel)

circularity (circle of life)

heroes - providing resources to help the tribe

"helping spirits"

Trout (1999) - themes

images and identities

spirit world

crisis in the homeland

remembered earth

all my relations

growing up

affairs of the heart

language and learning in two worlds

we survive

memory alive

 

 

 

Back to COM208U Syllabus