The transcription of Native American oral traditions first to the written word of print and more recently to the hypermedia of the World Wide Web presents a number of vexing issues for Native peoples and for scholars of Native American literatures and cultures. Transcription may preserve Native languages and traditions, but it may also alienate individuals from the living culture of their tribes.

Representation of Native cultures through literature or the Web may serve those who have otherwise been silenced to find a voice and a space for expression, but it may also lead to appropriation and misrepresentation of those cultures. Information technologies may serve to sustain tribal communities, but they may also offer nothing more than the psuedo-tribalism of the "global village," which effaces local identities and contexts.

Native Americans have continually adapted to new technologies and communication systems. The question is whether the new information technologies of the Web are useful in sustaining the web of relationships (communal, historical, spiritual, and spatial) upon which tribal identities depend. As one Inuit puts it, "We already have our web. If we can manipulate this one, we will use it. If we can't, we don't need it" (Teitelbaum). Indeed, one Native scholar has argued that "the pervasive universalism and individualism of the World Wide Web is antithetical to the particular localities, societies, moralities, and experiences that constitute tribalism" (Howe). Yet others are attempting to develop a Native-owned and operated telecommunications network, arguing that "Natives need to be a significant presence on the Net, and we need to make that happen on our own terms. If we don't define who we are on the Net, other people will do it for us. And when that happens, part of who we are disappears" (Martin).

Of course, access remains one central obstacle to the creation of a Native Web, an electronic information network by and for Native Americans. According to the U.S. Commerce Department's report "Falling Through the Net: Defining the Digital Divide," Native Americans (American Indians, Eskimos, and Aleuts) rank far below the national average in their access to telephones, computers, and the Internet. Only 83% of Native American households have a telephone, compared to almost 96% of white households. In rural areas, where many reservations are located, the number of Native American households with a telephone drops to 76%, while the number of white households with a telephone remains steady at 95%. Likewise, 46% of white households have a computer (42% in rural areas), compared to only 34% of Native American households (27% in rural areas). While 30% of white households use the Internet (24% in rural areas), only 19% of Native American households do so (13% in rural areas). However, Native Americans are particularly frequent users of communal resources, such as community centers and K-12 schools, to gain access to the Internet.

This site provides a forum for adressing the cultural, literary, and historical issues involved in weaving Native webs through the oral tradition, printed text, or hypermedia of the Internet.