The Importance Of Storytelling In Native American Culture

Stories have played an undeniably important role in Native American culture throughout history. An integral tradition for Native Americans, storytelling is used a variety of ways, acting as a way for Native Americans to communicate and connect with one another, encourage and give strength through tough times, and pass valuable knowledge down. Many Native American authors have expressed the importance of storytelling in their works, some even utilizing stories to teach about heritage and life lessons. Storytelling is an fundamental tradition in Native American culture, acting as a communal activity and a method of bonding. The importance of storytelling is communicated in an interview with Ceremony author, Leslie Marmon Silko. “It's very important to understand the function that this kind of telling and retelling of incidents has. It's what holds the community together in a way that goes beyond clan relations and blood relations” (Source B). Silko expresses that stories connect a group of people in a way that relationships and

It begins to link the individual to the rest of the people in a kind of very essential way so that the same kind of thing that just happened to you last week, well, we'll tell you about the other people it happened to and other people and all of a sudden you're not alone in what happened” (Source B). Individuals communicating with stories are able to connect with each other as they discover the commonalities they share with each other. Through stories, bonds are formed and the community as a whole grows stronger as people familiarize themselves with each other. The importance of stories is also communicated in other works. In “From a Native Daughter,” Trask recalls what kupuna elders had asked about nonnative historians documenting native culture: “Did these historians (all haole) know the language? Did they understand the chants? How long had they lived among our people?