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Lea Terhune
The indigenous peoples that first inhabited the Americas held their literature in memory to be transmitted orally, and members of surviving indigenous nations still do.
Lea Terhune is managing editor for this eJournal USA.
Before there was writing, there were stories. Over millennia, stories descended through generations, in families and communities -- stories that captured the values and legends of diverse societies. Gifted storytellers committed hundreds of tales and verses to memory, and they were highly honored as entertainers and teachers who inspired, instilled values, and guided behavior.
Writing was invented, and many stories transmitted orally were written down, but storytellers continued to enthrall traditional communities around the world. Even the 20th-century technological revolution, which brought radio, television, the Internet, and digital media, did not silence storytellers.
Indigenous Americans have a rich oral tradition among their many distinct tribes, or nations, who inhabited North and South America well before the first European explorer appeared. Today these stories, preserved within their communities, reach broader audiences thanks to storytellers like Sunny Dooley and Dovie Thomason. Dooley, a Navajo, or Dine, and Thomason, of Lakota and Kiowa Apache ancestry, sat down together to discuss storytelling in the 21st century after performances at the National Museum of the American Indian in Washington, D.C.
Dooley is a strict interpreter of Navajo tradition, who, following her chanter grandfather's advice, tells stories only where she is invited and does not advertise. Steeped in tribal culture while growing up on the Arizona Navajo reservation, her first language is Dine. Navajos, now the largest Indian nation in the United States, were seminomadic and pastoral. Thomason was born into Great Plains Indian nations, the Lakota, whose livelihoods revolved around the buffalo hunt before the herds were decimated, and Kiowa Apache, who were legendary, fierce warriors.
Oral traditions differ among tribes, but the goals are similar. "There are hundreds of native nations, and each nation and tribe has their specific purpose for stories," Sunny Dooley says, and for Navajos, "Stories are utilized as part of informing, teaching a person how to be human." The story's spiritual dimension makes it integral to all Navajo ceremonies, where it's used "to heal, it's used to teach, it's used to...