Native American Literature And Oral Tradition Analysis

Native American Literature and Oral Traditions A gentleman named David Eller once quoted, “Insularity is the foundation of ethnocentrism and intolerance; when you only know of those like yourself, it is easy to imagine that you are alone in the world or alone in being good and right in the world. Exposure to diversity, on the contrary, is the basis for relativism and tolerance; when you are forced to face and accept the other as real, unavoidable, and ultimately valuable, you cannot help but see yourself and your 'truths ' in a new - and trouble - way.” To judge another culture based solely on the standards and/or values opposing to your own is a very complicated way of life. As far back as history dates, diverse societies have shunned
The many cultural ways of The Native Americans, greatly impact ethnocentrism and the oral literary tradition.
During the Christopher Columbus’ era, around 1492, “Europeans spoke some two or three dozen languages, most of them closely related; and they were generally Christian in religious belief and worldview, although many groups had had contact, and conflict, with adherents of Judaism and Islam.” (Baym et al. 7). Long before Native Americans were discovered, Europeans already had their own way of “thinking,” or in other terms, “oral interpretation.” Relating to the ethnocentrism term, Europeans definitely felt superiority in their culture by having discovered their own oral literary traditions. As the Europeans approached what is now America, they learned that the Native Americans organized their societies in widely assorted forms, speaking hundreds of different languages. “The Native Americans had a lively oral culture that valued memory over mechanical means of
The religious beliefs, and languages of the Native Americans were countless. “In Native America there were almost surely such things as Winnebago trickster tale cycles, Apache jokes, Hopi personal naming and grievance chants, Yaqui deer songs, Yuman dream songs, Piman shamanic chants, Iroquois condolence rituals, Navajo curing and blessing chants, and Chippewa songs of the Great Medicine Society, to name only some of the types of Native American verbal expression.” (Baym et al. 7). From the early Colonial Period, to the early-nineteenth-century revolution when Romanticism was discovered, there was slight confusion and disagreement whether many Native American verbal types could be considered literary or not. “In that period the concept of literature shifted away from being defined by the medium of expression (all language preserved in letters) to the kind of expression (those texts that emphasized the imaginative and emotional possibilities of language).” (Baym et al. 8). After the modification of the definition of literature, society now believed that many Native American verbal categories could be considered