An Introduction to Native American Literature - 1015 Words

AN INTRODUCTION TO NATIVE AMERICAN LITERATURE Native American literatures embrace the memories of creation stories, the tragic wisdom of native ceremonies, trickster narratives, and the outcome of chance and other occurrences in the most diverse cultures in the world. These distinctive literatures, eminent in both oral performances and in the imagination of written narratives, cannot be discovered in reductive social science translations or altogether understood in the historical constructions of culture in one common name. (Vizenor 1) Since the end of the 15th century, the migration of Europeans to America, and their importation of Africans as slaves, has led to centuries of conflict and adjustment between Old and New World societies.†¦show more content†¦But they found the means to engage with their detractors by authoring their own accounts of Indians that challenged stereotypical beliefs, demanded equal political rights, and proved that Indians were neither disappearing nor silent. Native American authors have faithfully presented some of these issues of inherent native rights, the duplicities of federal policies, and the burdens of racial identities in their short stories and novels. Wynema by Sophia Alice Callahan published in 1891, was the first novel attributed to a Native American author. Callahan, who was a mixedblood Creek, was aware of tribal issues at the time and therefore devoted most of her novel to native issues. Since then many novels by distinguished Native American authors have been published. One of the most important writers among Native Americans in the 1930’s was D’Arcy McNickle, a member of the Flathead tribe of Montana. His first novel The Surrounded was published in 1936, two years after the Indian Reorganization Act was passed near the end of the Depression in the United States. His novel is the poignant story of a mix-breed family and the tragedy of their exclusion from both the red and the white worlds. Because of cultural misunderstandings, which begin between the Indian mother and Spanish father, suspicion, fear, and finally death take their children. The novel is a history of alienation.Show MoreRelatedNative American Sto rytelling Lit Paper1214 Words   |  5 PagesNative American Storytelling November 12, 2012 ENG/301 Native American Storytelling Native American literature is the root of cultural storytelling, which is told through oral tradition, this consist of stories and songs verbally. Native American literature use literary conventions in the root of myth and symbolic examples in storytelling. The book â€Å"Native American Literature: A Brief Introduction and Anthology† gives good insight into the Native American ways of life and how storytelling isRead MoreEssay on Ethnic Literature959 Words   |  4 PagesAmerican Literature Paper Randy Hale University of Phoenix ENG.301 American Ethic Literature Michael Cromwell December 24, 2012 American Ethic Literature Paper What makes American literature American? American literature is just that American literature. American literature is stories of people lives that are based on American standards. Early American standards where based around slavery and oppression but now they are based on freedoms like freedom of speech and press. America hasRead More The Presentation of Native Americans In Childrens Literature1615 Words   |  7 PagesThe Presentation of Native Americans In Childrens Literature In the 1970s the seed of change began to grow in childrens literature. 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In Native American myths, â€Å"animals hadRead MoreNo One Hears Words on a Page: The Native American Oral Tradition1021 Words   |  5 Pages The impact of contemporary Native American authors is not diminished by the fact they fail to fully transcribe tales of the oral tradition into an equally successful literary story. The basic elements of the oral tradition are technically adhere d to but the interaction between audience and the teller is absent. The lack of personal interaction with the histories and ethical tales changes the culture of Native Americans. Literary stories are generally published for public consumption. The publicRead MoreThe Culture Of Latin America Essay1630 Words   |  7 PagesIntroduction and Background The culture of Latin America is multi-faceted and rich. More than 300 million Spanish speakers reside in Latin America and are spread across a vast geographic region; this makes it tough at times to explain Latin American culture. Though, there are some living standards and ways of observing life which is in common all over the majority of the area. Latin America comprises of 21 main countries. Major languages spoken in Latin America are French, Portuguese, and SpanishRead More Comparing Black Elk Speaks and The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fist Fight in Heaven1679 Words   |  7 Pagesin Heaven      Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Traditionally, Native American Literature has been an oral genre. Although Native American Literature was the first American literature created, it has been the last to be recognized -and, to some extent, is still waiting for full recognition (www.usc.edu). With the Indian being forced to assimilate, their literature was forced to take on a written form. Although the traditional way of storytelling has changed, Native American Literature has survived. In its written form, itRead MoreThe Native American Trickster Tales: a Different Kind of Hoax941 Words   |  4 PagesThe Native American Trickster Tales: A Different Kind of Hoax The differences in each of the Native American Trickster Tales. Trickster Tales may be humorous because of all the chaos the Trickster causes, but the Trickster helps cultures in many ways. These tales entertain as well as teach valuable life lessons to the reader or listener. Trickster Tales are very diverse, and the Trickster character changes, depending on the region the tale comes from. One of the only things all Trickster TalesRead MoreA Candidate For The Ed.d833 Words   |  4 Pages [May, 2014-May, 2016] Master of Arts: Forensic Linguistics, 4.0 GPA †¢ Recipient of comparative literature department scholarship (spring, fall 2015). †¢ Concentration: how speakers’ different L1 backgrounds affect the quality of their L2 grammar productions. †¢ Thesis:â€Å"An Analysis of Production Frequency of English Definite and Indefinite Articles and Associated Syntactic Patterns in a Corpus of Native Korean Speakers†. CUNY-Queens College, Flushing, New York, USA Read MoreCoyote and Bear1478 Words   |  6 PagesThe Native American tale of Coyote and Bear, originally translated from oral tradition in nineteen six by G. A. Dorsey in the book The Pawnee, Mythology, Part I, tells us the story of Coyote who accidentally meets Bear, and in order to protect himself from being killed by Bear, starts to make up self praising stories to impress Bear. Eventually, Coyote convinces Bear, but after a few hesitant moves, Bear realizes that Coyote was lying. The tale then, ends up with the murder of Coyote by Bear. The