Oral

Tradition
American Literature
Daily and Saturday shift

Professor: Luis Alvarado

Learning Objective

Students will take a first approach to the main

elements and types of literary work from the
Native American Literature.
Contents 1 What do you know about Native American Literature?

2 Part 1 - Oral Traditions

3 Part 2 - Trickster Tales

4 Part 3 - Creation Stories

5 Part 4 - Stories of rituals

6 Part 5 - Captivity Narratives

Contents 7 Part 6 - Native American Involvement

8 Part 7 - Assignment
What do you know about Native
American Literature?

Sharing time!

háu!
 Part 1

Oral Traditions

Using the term “Native American literature” to describe the stories of natives of the New World
is kind of a misnomer since natives of the New World didn’t have written traditions. There was no
established alphabet by which native tribes across the continents wrote down their stories.

Native cultures had oral traditions. A story would be passed down from generation to
generation, spoken by a storyteller, usually around a fire at night. Stories would change as each
storyteller put his or her own spin on the stories with gestures, tone, and other alterations to
minor story details. The main part of the story would remain intact, though, but would be given
new life and meaning with each generation’s storytellers.
 Part 1

Oral Traditions

Moreover, there was no common language shared by native nations across the Americas at the
time of the Europeans' arrival. In fact, no unified Native American culture existed at that time or
at any other. Hundreds of tribes and nations ranged across continents and organized their
societies in different ways. They had different economic and political systems, different linguistic
structures, and different customs. More organized tribal communities coexisted with hunter-
gatherer societies. It was a genuine mix of cultures.

Where Europeans had comedies, tragedies, sonnets, and lyrics, native cultures developed their
own storytelling forms. Here are a few representative types.
 Part 2

Trickster Tales

Trickster tales were common across Native American cultures. The “trickster” is usually a rowdy,
childlike prankster who causes trouble wherever he goes. He doesn’t care to play by the rules
and doesn’t have much respect for authority. He has magical abilities and can change gender on
a whim—usually to avoid getting caught or to cause mischief. The trickster was commonly
associated with an animal. In the West he was a coyote, in the Southeast he was a rabbit, and in
the northern Great Plains he was a spider. The trickster is a troublemaker, but he also carries a
powerful message: Through the disorder he causes, he pushes people to think about what they
value and know. Tales about a familiar trickster character were usually strung together into
“cycles” of different episodes.
 Part 2

The Coyote and

the Fish
https://www.sacred-texts.com/nam/nw/chinook/cht09.htm
 Part 3

Creation Stories

Like Europeans, Native American cultures had their own stories about how they came to be.
Native American creation stories helped cultures understand their role on Earth. The stories were
usually set in nature and had anthropomorphic characters, supernatural events, and complicated
storylines. Many native cultures also had stories of a “great flood,” just like the Judeo-Christian
traditions (as well as other religious traditions around the world).
 Part 3

The Two Worlds

https://cdn5-
ss1.sharpschool.com/UserFiles/Servers/Server_10640642/File/bugge/Chapter%201/Iroquois%2
0Creation%20Story.pdf
 Part 4

Stories of Rituals

Like any culture, Native American cultures each had specific rituals to welcome new life,
celebrate rites of passage, and bury the dead. Information about conducting important rituals
was shared through song, dance, and music. Stories about how the rituals came to be were
often woven into long song cycles.
 Part 4

Mojave Song
Cycles

One Mojave Song Cycle, composed of 525 songs, tells a creation story. The song cycle is sung
over several days after someone dies. The cycle helps the deceased on his or her journey in the
afterlife.

Mojave Bird Song

 Part 5

Captivity
Narratives
One of the earliest genres to emerge in American literature is the captivity narrative. Captivity
narratives tell the experiences of a person being held captive by an enemy, and are usually
distinguished by the author’s disapproval of the captor’s beliefs or customs. These narratives tell
of gruesome events and the strength and courage taken to overcome them. Some of the earliest
examples of captivity narratives in American literature were written by women. For this reason,
these narratives often give us fascinating glimpses into women’s experiences during the early
days of the colonists.
 Part 6

Native American
Involvment
It didn’t take long for things to deteriorate between Native Americans and the first English
colonists. Within sixty years, the friendly contract that the Mayflower pilgrims established with
surrounding Native American tribes was broken, and war broke out. When colonists executed
three of Metacomet’s Wampanoag tribesmen in Plymouth, Massachusetts, Metacomet, or King
Philip (his adopted English name), waged a war against the colonists. He and his tribesmen tore
through settlements burning houses and killing men, women, and children, and took dozens of
colonists hostage. These attacks became known as the First Indian War, or King Philip’s War.
 Part 6

Native American
Involvment
Mary Rowlandson, the wife of a Puritan minister, was one of the many hostages taken during
these attacks. She wrote about her captivity in A Narrative of the Captivity and Restoration of
Mrs. Mary Rowlandson. In her narrative, she describes in rich detail the events of the attack and
her three-month captivity. She tells how her attackers tore through her village with bullets that
“seemed to fly like hail,” slashing and disemboweling men before her eyes. One bullet caught her
and her child: One [bullet] went through my side, and the same (as would seem) through the
bowels and hand of my dear child in my arms.
 Part 6

Native American
Involvment
With her child in her arms, she was forced away from the scene, to walk 150 miles with her
captors through the thick forests of North America, away from life as she knew it. Nine days into
the trek her child died; two other children were later sold to different tribes. The interesting thing
about these captivity narratives is that they often show the complicated relationships between
captor and captive. While Rowlandson watched the merciless slaughter of her brother-inlaw:

No sooner were we out of the house, but my brother-in-law (being wounded, in defending the
house, in or near the throat) fell down dead, whereat the Indians scornfully shouted, and
hallowed, and were presently upon him, stripping off his clothes.
 Part 6

Native American
Involvment
She would later find sympathy and grace with the people who so brutally killed her relatives. She
describes how, when she was wild with hunger, a Native American woman offered her some
food:

But I was fain to go and look after something to satisfy my hunger, and going among the
wigwams, I went into one and there found a squaw who showed herself very kind to me, and
gave me a piece of bear . . . I have sometime seen bear baked very handsomely among the
English, and some like it, but the thought that it was bear made me tremble. But now that was
savory to me that one would think was enough to turn the stomach of a brute creature.
 Part 6

Native American
Involvment
While the thought of eating bear once made Rowlandson “tremble,” she now found it “savory” in
the face of real hunger. Rowlandson was eventually ransomed by her husband and set free
three months after her capture, but clearly, she was a new person. Her narrative documents a
woman whose ordeal continually tested and restored her faith in God, and expanded her
courage, even down to the food she was willing to eat.

Captivity narratives like Rowlandson’s give us a firsthand account of the serious troubles settlers
experienced in the seventeenth century. They reveal much about how Native Americans and
English settlers were forever and irrevocably changed by their contact with each other, each
driving to maintain a claim on the precious lands they each called home.
 Assignment
Find a Native American tale, myth, or legend,
and record yourself reading it. Be as creative as
possible. Then write a one-paragraph comment
explaining why you chose that passage and what
you found interesting about it.
 Thank you!

"It is better to have less thunder in the mouth and more

lightning in the hand."