Native Voices

Quinn Anderson

English 11

Ms. Fordahl

February 5, 2014

Native Voices

 

            For the past few weeks in English class we have been learning about the Native American culture about their sacred land, oral traditions, religion, and many more things as well. We read two different stories from N. Scott Momaday and Louise Erdrich. N. Scott Momaday wrote a little bit about himself and his culture. He wrote the short story called A Way to Rainy Mountain. Louise Erdrich wrote a little biography about herself as well and a short story called “Saint Marie”. I’m writing this essay mainly on the Native oral traditions.

            Oral tradition is the tradition of songs, chants, and performances that were passed down from generation to generation without being written down. N. Scott Momaday talked a little about his life when he was younger about how his father was a great storyteller. He never knew how important the stories his father was telling him until he got older. In the Native culture stories about history is a huge deal.

            In the story A Way to Rainy Mountain, Momaday’s grandmother told him stories orally about the land. Nothing was ever written down until Momaday decided to write about the stories that he was told when he was younger. I wouldn’t say Momaday ended oral traditions but he definitely changed a lot about tradition. He was one of the first to just stop and write about it. His short story was like creation stories.

            Louise Erdrich wrote a short story called “Saint Marie”. It was about a little girl named Marie who went up to a house on a hill with a nun who thinks Marie is possessed. The nun does a lot of cruel things to Marie. I think this short story is just tale-types. Erdrich uses yellow women stories in this particular story. I think Saint Marie is a story that Louise made referring to her Native culture.

            Our culture is a lot different compared to Native American culture. They tell their stories about their history as where we read about our history. Stories do get passed down to different generations but we do it in a different way. Louise started something a little different for Native American culture I think. She told her story about her culture using creation stories.

            In conclusion to my essay I learned a lot about the Native American culture. I learned in the video that many years ago Native Americans talked about their history without writing anything down. All of their stories were down orally. Their land meant everything to them. They believed they came from the land. Their land was sacred. Native American oral tradition is very rare now.