Why was story telling important for the Native Americans?

Answer 1

Story telling was the primary way of passing on ones history, culture, and values. It was also a form of entertainment.

This questions requires a very complex and lengthy answer for you to truly understand the significance of storytelling. I will attempt to answer but know what I say isn't even the half of it.

Simply. Many Natives didn't have a written language that we know of. So story telling is how they passed on information from one generation to the next. Please know that story telling for Native people is much different than story telling in other cultures, especially the dominant American culture.

Also story telling = oral tradition

Because the oral tradition was so important there were usually only a couple carriers of oral tradition in a tribe. This was maybe their main tribal duty. Someone could not or was not supposed tell a story if they were to tell it incorrectly, although there was room for a learning curve. Stories were passed on generation to generation without th e story changing. Even the smallest details were kept the same. Native language allowed for this to happen. In some tribes there are several words for snow so that the details could be communicated correctly. If someone was to pass on a story incorrectly as if it were the right one there was consequences and people would not take them seriously or listen to anymore of their stories. It is important to know how accurate oral tradition is. Some stories can even be backed up by science today. For example someone telling about how a lake was made, scientists can explore how that lake was made and confirm the oral tradition. Oral tradition goes back hundreds of thousands of years.

Passes on history - oral tradition is the way one knows their creation story, all tribes have different creation stories (kinda like the one in the bible). This tells the people where they came from and why they are here. Oral tradition also carries on histories from every year. If something significant happened it would become part of the oral tradition.

Passes on culture - oral tradition also kept the intricacies of ceremonies and cultural practices. There might be stories that explained how and why something should be done.

Passes on values - oral tradition passes on the values of a people as well. It gives instruction on how to live life. There are multiple stories that are much like fables, they have a meaning to them, a lesson in them. People are expected to know these stories and act appropriately.

One example:
There may be a hill that is named "sunny hill" . Sunny hill would be named that for a reason. There would be a story behind sunny hill. Everyone would know the name of the hill and the story behind it. Often the story would also have a lesson in it.
One way to use the story might be: A young girl is at a gathering and does something culturally inappropriate. The story of Sunny Hill explains what is appropriate. So, later while the girl is at a birthday party an Elder tells the story of Sunny Hill. The girl knows the story is directed at her and runs out of the party embarrassed, everyone knows the story is directed at her.

By the way, I am Native

Answer 2

Story telling among any peoples who didn't have writing was an important way of passing on the tribal history from one generation to the next; and a way to teach morals and ethics to the children of the tribe. And, without writing, radio, and television, it was the main form of entertainment. And, even in our high tech society, what child doesn't delight in having a parent or grand parent tell them a story?

Answer 3

They didn't have a way to write them to preserve the stories for the next genreation, so telling them gave them a way to pass them on. Many lessons and truths were taught through them as well.

Answer 4

For the same reason it was important for any tribes need to keep their tales and beliefs alive from generation to generation in any land.

Answer 5

they would tell stories about people so they could Honor the Memory of the person after he died

Answer 6

All cultures and religions have their stories, their beliefs...so I'm not getting the question...

Answer 7

One of my friends is a Anthropoligist who specializes in just such research. Here's a quote from one of her letters on the subject.


"One point you failed to mention - which probably deserves mention - is that in the Northwest coast traditions, stories can be owned by a clan or individual, and if a story _is_ owned in this way, others may not tell that story, even if they know it; telling it would be considered like theft or plagiarism. It is often difficult to find out whether a particular story is owned - particularly if you do not actually live in the area - but there is a moral need to try, and at the very least to be aware of this issue.

Leslie first became aware of this issue when living along the Skeena River in Northwest British Columbia, where she had the privalege of having friends and associates who were Gitksan, Tsimshian, Nisga'a and Haida, and of working with and learning from elders and Chiefs from some of these groups. There are stories, like the raven or Wiget stories, which may be common cultural property of the whole group, and which may be found amoung several different nations, and stories which are considered to be "true traditions" and are owned property and may only be told by the owner or with permission from the rightful owner. Western writers and storytellers have sometimes been unaware of this, and at least one published story has raised ire in the community as an unwarranted theft of a story which is owned by several related fireweed houses in the Hazelton area of Northwest British Columbia...

These stories are told, by their rightful owners, at feasts and potlatches where they serve to validate the chiefly names and privelidges of the clan, and a failure to respect the owners' exclusive right is a failure to respect those names and privileges (and the cultural traditions surrounding the stories)."
http://eldrbarry.net/rabb/rvn/whoowns.htm



It is the same with the Aboriginals of Austrailia. The current reparations entails in large part the telling of the stories to establish clan holdings and guardianship of certian lands. There are also many types of stories that belong to one gender or another. Even talking about them or referring to them is dangerous for the wrong sex.



"Aboriginal oral tradition may be public (open to all members of a community and often a kind of entertainment) or sacred (closed to all but initiated members of one or the other sex). Narratives of the public sort range from the stories told by women to the young children (mostly elementary versions of creation stories--also appropriate for tourists and amateur anthropologists) to the recitation of song cycles in large gatherings (known as corroborees). Even the most uncomplicated narratives of the Dreaming introduce basic concepts about the land and about what it is that distinguishes right behaviour from wrong. When children are old enough to prepare for their initiation ceremonies, the stories become more elaborate and complex. Among the sacred songs and stories are those that are men's business and those that are women's business; each is forbidden to the eyes and ears of the other sex and to the uninitiated.

The chief subject of Aboriginal narratives is the land. As Aborigines travel from place to place, they (either informally or ceremonially) name each place, telling of its creation and of its relation to the journeys of the Ancestors. This practice serves at least three significant purposes: it reinforces their knowledge of local geography--that is, the food routes, location of water holes, places of safety, places of danger, the region's terrain, and so on--and it also serves a social function (sometimes bringing large clans together) and a religious or ritual function.

Many of the stories have to do with the journeys of the Ancestors and the "creation sites," places at which they created different clans and animals. Other stories concern battles between Ancestor figures for power and knowledge. A sequence of stories or songs--a story track or song line--identifies the precise route taken by an Ancestor figure. Knowledge and recitation of the journey of each totemic figure is the responsibility of that figure's totemic clan. (Members of a biological family belong to different totems, or Dreamings.) Because an Ancestor's journey is often traced over vast stretches of land, only a segment of the entire song cycle or story is known to a particular group. These are exchanged at meeting points, and, though the songs may be sung in a different language, an Ancestor's story contains musical elements that make it clearly identifiable to all members of that totem, from whatever part of the country. Song lines and story tracks can be traced over the entire country. In this way oral literature sustains the sense of continuity between the clans as well as between the present and the time of creation.

Important stories that deal with the activities of perhaps just one or two of the ancestral figures and belong to adjacent areas and adjacent clans may constitute a song cycle. Some of these stories do not allow for variation and constitute a formal literature with precise structures and particular language. For example, repetition is an important structural device. Verb forms and tenses indicate the unchanging yet ongoing relationship between the ancestral past and the present. The persistent theme of transformation, a theme characteristic of many oral literatures, is for the people a way of access to their mythic past, to the eternal present of the Dreaming." http://www.gaiaguys.net/Dreamtime%20EB.htm

Answer 8

They were not able to pass on their myths and legends otherwise, they couldn't commit it to paper so they spread it by word of mouth.

Answer 9

Because they did not have radio, TV, and DVDs.

Story telling was their entertainment,

Answer 10

Its how (no pun intended) they passed on their culture from generatrion to generartion