# data[].attributes.body
ORAL FORMS

“Before the arrival of Columbus, there were

thousands of narratives, ceremonies, songs, and speeches performed by experts trained in performance and interpretation.” - The Cambridge Companion to Native American Literature.

Native American oral traditions include a rich variety of forms such as myths, legends, folktales, and songs, which have been used to transmit cultural knowledge, history, and values for generations. These forms are not static; they are dynamically passed down through storytelling, often involving elders and collective memory. Key elements include powerful storytelling, repetition, and a deep connection to the natural world

Creation, trickster, hero, and animal stories for narratives.

Most forms of Native American oral literatures are communal. The individual performing the song, ceremony, or narrative is usually not considered the ‘‘creator’’ of the ‘‘text.’

# data[].attributes.body
CREATION STORIES

Stories that explain the origin of the world, humanity and natural elements.

The more spiritual stories (could not be told by anyone)

The world was created by ‘‘Thought-Woman, the spider,’’

The earth diver motif

Iruiqois legend: A story of a great island floating in the sky where Sky people live in. A Sky woman gets pushed down to the world below by her husband because she is going to give birth to twins. Thanks to the help of animals, land is created and the Sky woman then creates the sun and the moon. Later, she gives birth to the twins, Saplingand and Flint. One representing good and the other representing evil.

The Yamakama tribe legend: This creation story tells us about the Great Chief Above who created the world. He went to shallow places in the water and created land out of mud, he also piled mud that froze creating mountains. The Great Chief Above also created a man and showed him to hunt and later a woman so that the man could feel less lonely and he showed her how to make baskets, to cook and dress skin.

# data[].attributes.body
THE TRICKSTER FIGURE

- A traditional figure that appears in Native American tales.

- Narratives with a didactic (teaching) element.

- A cultural and mythological character.

- A supernatural entity primarily associated with transformation.

- It appears in various forms across different Native American nations and the narratives they create, knows as trickster stories:

Shape-shifting trickster.

Hero trickster.

Dakota trickster, Iktomi.

Reservation trickster.

- Gerald Vizenor is "widely recognized as a leading writer and scholar of Native literature, the innovative author who gave trickster narrative a contemporary turn." - The Cambridge Companion to Native American Literature.

Tribal trickster:

In traditional Native American literature.

Oral storytelling.

VS.

Urban trickster:

Modern Native American literature.

Written literature: fiction, poetry and theatre.

# data[].attributes.body
“AS-TOLD-TO STORIES”: They mark the beginning of anthropological accounts, transmitted those stories to white people that came to the tribes by oral stories. The stories had been used to preserve about oral tradition, and then became written and translated.

It was hard to survive for natives in other places and learn a new life, but the most difficult was to leave the stories behind. These stories were like their Bible, thus their stories in other places would not make any sense, since they were specific about certain rivers, mountains...

Resistance and survival of their stories beyond oral tradition to written.

Assert and reaffirm identity.

Performative and interactive qualities.

Native stories often serve as counter narratives to mainstream history, that is, history told by white people.

Memory of their history and culture.

# data[].attributes.body
Birth and Early Life

Born October 7, 1966. Spokane Indian Reservation, Washington

Mixed Salish ancestry: mother from Spokane tribe, father Coeur d’Alene.

Health problems, unable to compete physically, so he became a passionate reader.

Education:

All-white high school, out the reservation

Graduated from Washington State University (BA) in 1991.

Poetry course at WSU

Literary Career

Focus on poetry, short stories, novels, essays, and screenplays

Central theme: challenges of American Indians

Film: Wrote Smoke Signals (1998)

Recent Controversy

2017 published memoir You Don’t Have to Say You Love

-->allegations of sexual misconduct

# data[].attributes.headline
The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven (1993)

# data[].attributes.subject
The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven (1993)

# data[].attributes.body
A collection of interconnected short stories about life on the Spokane Indian Reservation.

# data[].attributes.body
Novel that continues the lives of some characters from his earlier stories.

Tells how a group of Native American friends form a rock band.

Won the American Book Award.

# data[].attributes.headline
The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian (2007) 

# data[].attributes.subject
The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian (2007) 

# data[].attributes.body
Semi-autobiographical novel about a Native American teenager who leaves his reservation school to attend a white high school.

Won the National Book Award for Young People’s Literature.

# data[].attributes.body
BIOGRAPHY

Born in Little Falls, Minnesota in 1954.

She is an American author of novels, poetry, and children's books.

She is a descendant of Native American Indians (the Ojibwe Indian tribe), although she is also of German descent.

She has won awards such as the World Fantasy Award, the National Book Award, the Scott O'Dell Prize, and the prestigious Pulitzer Prize in 2021.

# data[].attributes.body
- The book follows the lives of five interconnected Ojibwe families living on fictional reservations in Minnesota and North Dakota.

- The publication marked the beginning of what some call the ‘‘second wave’’ of a Native American literary renaissance.

# data[].attributes.body
- The story follows the life of Omakayas and her Ojibwe community beginning in 1847.

- She was moved to write it to show aspects of a real native family during that time in history.

# data[].attributes.body
- It was inspired by the life of Erdrich's grandfather who motivated and inspired other members of the Turtle Mountain Reservation to resist the Indian termination policies of the 1940s–1960s.

# data[].attributes.body
BIOGRAPHY:

She was an American poet, writer, musician and activist.

She was the first Native American to be named U.S. poet laureate.

She was born in Tulsa, Oklahoma (U.S.) in 1951.

She was enrolled as a member of the Muscogge (Creek) Nation.

EDUCATION AND BECOMING A POET:

She turned to painting for solace and at age 16 she attended the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

She wrote songs for an all-Native rock band and joined an all Native theater group.

She enrolled at the University of New Mexico with the intention of studying medicine. However, she soon switched to art before changing her major again to creative writing.

She attended the University of Iowa, where she studied creative writing.

# data[].attributes.headline
What Moon Drove Me to This? (1979)

# data[].attributes.subject
What Moon Drove Me to This? (1979)

# data[].attributes.body
Biography

Shiprock, New Mexico, 1953

Nationality: Navajo (Diné)

Languages: Navajo and English

In 2013, she became the first Poet Laureate of the Navajo Nation

Literary Work

She mainly writes poetry, but she is also an autobiographer, essayist, and children's fiction writer

Bilingual poetry: Navajo-English

Main themes: clans, families, places, and language of Dinetah (Navajo Country), often from a woman's perspective

# data[].attributes.body
This poetry volume captures Navajo life in its entirety, stressing the colloquial wisdom, humor, and courage of ordinary Navajo people.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
A Breeze Swept Through by Luci Tapahonso (1987, Paperback) West ...

# data[].attributes.headline
Sáanii Dahataal: The Women Are Singing (1993)

# data[].attributes.subject
Sáanii Dahataal: The Women Are Singing (1993)

# data[].attributes.body
Poems portray Navajo everyday life, while also reflecting on the continuity of ancestral values in the present.

# data[].attributes.wish_content.attachment_props.alternative_text
Sáanii Dahataal: The Women Are Singing (1993)

# data[].attributes.body
A collection of stories and verse that celebrates Navajo life, family, and traditions through admiring the beauty of everyday life.

# data[].attributes.body
BIOGRAPHY:

Born March 5, 1948 in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

Mixed ancestry: Laguna Pueblo, Mexican and Anglo-American.

Studied at the University of New Mexico, where she graduated with honors in 1969.

She briefly enrolled in law school, but left to pursue her writing career in 1971.

MAIN TOPICS IN HER WORKS:

Indigenous identity – pride and search for roots.

Cultural clash – between the Laguna Pueblo and the Western world.

Oral tradition – stories as a form of memory and teaching.

Healing and balance – healing wounds from the past (personal and collective).

Indigenous resistance – criticism of colonialism and defense of the land.

# data[].attributes.body
Ceremony narrates the spiritual healing of Tayo, an indigenous veteran who overcomes his war trauma through the traditions and ceremonies of his people.

# data[].attributes.body
Storyteller is a collection of stories, poems and photographs that celebrates the oral tradition and the identity of the Laguna town.

# data[].attributes.body
Almanac of the Dead portrays a world of chaos and resistance where indigenous and marginalized peoples rise up against colonialism and corruption in America.

# data[].attributes.body
Biography:

He was born in Oklahoma, California 1982.

Raised in a mixed-raced Native family.

American writer and Novelist and member of Cheyenne and Arapho tribes.

One of the most famous Native American authors.

Education:

He worked in a bookstore and joined Native storytelling programs to record and share Native stories before becoming a writer

He is now a teacher of Literary Writing and he still writes novels and essays.

Common Topics: modern Native life, family, and how history still affects people today.

# data[].attributes.body
The story of 12 Native American living in Oklahoma who have to face problems of identity loss of culture and life in the city.

# data[].attributes.body
it is a prequel and sequel of There There which continues narrating the difficulties of being a Native American.