Hero Initiation, Symbolic Landmarks, Oral Tradition, And Emergency Myths

Native American Literature

In the distance the ground rumbles, the dirt flies, and the smell of sweat is strong. The Native American Literature time period covers 0-1400. Main events that were occurring during this stretch of time include, The Land Bridge crossing, the beginning of rock paintings and the bow and arrow were introduced. Although, Native American Literature was mainly oral tradition there are five characteristics used to tell stories which are, Hero Initiation, Trickster, Symbolic Landmarks, Oral Tradition, and Emergency Myths. Let’s take a deeper look at each one of these individual characteristics.

The first characteristic we are going to cover is hero initiation. “One reoccurring motif in Native American literature is that

“The Trickster may be a foolish figure who reveals human avarice, they are often selfish or mean-spirited which results in being punished” (Millisaw). This quote explains that if you do harm, bad things may come to you, your family, or your tribe. A tribe that used this characteristic was the Mojave. They often associated a coyote or a fox with this type of behavior. It was not good to be called the fox or the coyote. This means that a person should take precaution in the way they present themselves as well as how they behave. This was a way for the Indians to teach their children right from wrong.

Another characteristic is that of a symbolic landmark. “Involves attributing human characteristics to landmark formations or inanimate objects” (Millisaw). This means that the author or story teller would give trees the ability to walk or dogs the ability to talk. The Indians did this because they believed that everything on the earth was alive, even a rock. A tribe that used this characteristic in their storytelling was the Morongo people. This has an ifluence on culture today because we also give human characteristics to land formations or inanimate objects, however we call it

“Telling a story and writing a story, even if they are the same story, remembered from generation to generation, are not the same way of preserving the story. The teller and the writer use different faculties of mind, and have different habits and disciplines of language, memory, and tradition” (MacKay). This means that the stories that were taught in their time period are much different than what we are accustom to. In each tribe you were valued if you could speak well in public because you could be in a sense the Historian for your culture and history whereas now some people don’t value public speaking as much as it used to be valued. One of the tribes that used this characteristic were the Serrano peoples. Every single Native American tribe used oral tradition to tell stories as well as teach life lessons or to explain why the world was a certain way. Each tribe has their own ways of telling these individual stories. Some tribes had stories that other tribes knew nothing about and vice versa. Each tribe had their own language that they used to tell these stories. Which would make it difficult for other tribes to understand. Due to this we will never completely know the stories of the tribes. Also what we know may not be accurate information. White settlers would have Indians tell them stories and the whites