Transcribing Native American Oral Traditions

Representing Native American Cultures

Tribal Technologies & Technological Tribalism

Cultural Adaptation

Allen, Paula Gunn. The Sacred Hoop: Recovering the Feminine in American Indian Traditions. Boston: Beacon P, 1986. Distinguishes American Indian literatures based on oral traditions and tribal perspectives from Western European narrative structures.

Havelock, Eric A. "The General Theory of Primary Orality." The Muse Learns to Write: Reflections on Orality and Literacy from Antiquity to the Present. New Haven: Yale UP, 1986. 63-78. Argues that we lack a model for thinking about and describing primary orality since our consciousness is shaped by print culture. Develops a theory of oral culture based on tradition learned through ritualized utterance dependent upon rhythm and narrative.

Krupat, Arnold. "An Approach to Native American Texts." Critical Essays on Native American Literature. Ed Andrew Wiget. Boston: G. K. Hall, 1985. 116-31. Analysis of Native American texts must take into account 1) the mode of production of the text, 2) the "author," 3) definitions of literature, and 4) issues of canonicity. Suggests that a revolution in the mode of production of texts (from print to printout) returns us to a major premise of Native American literature, that cultures can sustain themselves without printed texts.

Larson, Sidner. "Native American Aesthetics: An Attitude of Relationship." MELUS 17.3 (Fall 1991-92): 53-67. Address the ways in which elements of the oral tradition function within Native American written literature.

Momaday, N. Scott. "The Man Made of Words." Literature of the American Indians: Views and Interpretations. Ed. Abraham chapman. New York: New American Library, 1975. 96-110. Suggests that "an Indian is an idea which a given man has of himself. And it is a moral idea, for it accounts for the way in which he reacts to other men and to the world in general. And that idea, in order to be realized completely, has to be expressed" through literature (understood in the broadest sense to include the oral tradition).

Momaday, N. Scott. "The Native Voice." Columbia Literary History of the United States. Ed. Emory Elliott. New York: Columbia UP, 1988. 5-15. Examines the oral tradition as the foundation of literature.

Ong, Walter. Orality and Literacy: The Technologizing of the Word. London: Methuen, 1982. Thought and expression in primary oral cultures (without knowledge of writing) have the following characteristics: 1)additive, 2) aggregative, 3) redundant, 4) conservative, 5) close to the human lifeworld, 6) agonistically toned, 7) empathetic and participatory, 8) homeostatic, and 9) situational. The electronic age is characterized by secondary orality.

Owens, Louis. Other Destinies: Understanding the American Indian Novel. Norman: U. Oklahoma P, 1992. Examines American Indian "mixedblood" fiction as translation and reorientation from paradigmatic world of oral tradition to syntagmatic reality of written language.

Rupert, James. Mediation in Contemporary Native American Fiction. Norman: U. Oklahoma P, 1995. Native American fiction mediates between the epistemological frameworks and discourse fields of Native American and Western European cultural traditions.

Sarris, Greg. Keeping Slug Woman Alive: A Holistic Approach to American Indian Texts. Berkeley: U. California P, 1993. Notes the importance of context and the relationship between audience and storyteller in oral storytelling and in cross-cultural writing.

Tedlock, Dennis. The Spoken Word and the Work of Interpretation. Philadelphia: U. Pennsylvania P, 1983. Theorizes a poetics of oral narrative that depends upon dialogue and performance.

Wiget, Andrew. "A Talk Concerning First Beginnings: Teaching Native American Oral Literature." Essays on Teaching the American Literatures (from the Heath Anthology Newsletter). Georgetown U. 9 March 1999 <http://www.georgetown.edu/tamlit/
essays/native_am.html>. Discusses issues involved in teaching Native American oral literatures and offers approaches used to teach one such text: the Zuni Talk Concerning the First Beginning.

Speaking for/Speaking as: Representing Native American Cultures

Cole, David E., et. al., eds. "A Line in the Sand." 1 Feb. 1999. 9 March 1999 <http://www.hanksville.org/sand/>. Addresses numerous issues relating to the use of intellectual and cultural property of Native Americans.

Cook-Lynn, Elizabeth. "The American Indian Fiction Writer: 'Cosmopolitanism, Nationalism, the Third World, and First Nation Sovereignty.'" Wicazo Sa Review 9:2 (Fall 1993): 26-36. Nativist criticism of American Indian writers who adopt a cosmopolitan stance rather than affirm their committment to indigenous literary traditions, tribal nationalism, and anticolonial struggles.

Cubbins, Elaine M. "Techniques for Evaluating American Indian Web Sites." 6 Feb. 1999. U Arizona. March 1999 <http://www.u.arizona.edu/%7Eecubbins/
webcrit.html>. Guidelines for evaluating and identifying Web sites on American Indians that are accurate and not exploitative.

Forbes, Jack. "Colonialism and Native American Literature: Analysis." Wicazo Sa Review 3:2 (Fall 1987): 17-23. Defines Native American literature not only based on authorial identity but on intended audience and form of distribution. Native American literature is "produced by Indians for Indians."

Hobson, Geary. "The Rise of the White Shaman as a New Version of Cultural Imperialism." The Remembered Earth: An Anthology of Contemporary Native American Literature. Ed. Geary Hobson. Albuquerque: U. New Mexico P, 1979. 100-108. Concerned with "the manner in which outsiders presume to define Indian people and lifeways in an authoritative way" and "the great need which Indian people have of being the ones to speak for themselves, of being the ones to define themselves and their cultures."

Johnson, Myke. "Wanting to be Indian: When Spiritual Teaching Turns Into Cultural Theft." 1995. 9 March 1999 <http://dickshovel.netgate.net/respect.html>. Discusses the ethical questions raised by White peoples' exploration of the religious ceremonies and beliefs of American Indians.

Krupat, Arnold. The Voice in the Margin: Native American Literature and the Canon. Berkeley: U. California P, 1989. & Ethnocriticsm: Ethnography, History, Literature. Bekeley: U. California P, 1992. Non-native ethnographers, historians, and literary critics working with Native American cultural productions should include both Indian and Western perspectives, resisting the temptation to speak for or as an Indian. Aims for a kind of critical cosmopolitanism that balances local identities with universal ones, which he calls ethnocriticism.

Silko, Leslie Marmon. "An Old-Time Indian Attack Conducted in Two Parts." The Remembered Earth: An Anthology of Contemporary Native American Literature. Ed. Geary Hobson. Albuquerque: U. New Mexico P, 1979. 211-16. Concerned with two implicit racist assumptions about Native American culture and literature: 1) that whites have the "ability to perceive and master the essential beliefs, values and emotions of persons from Native American communities" (allowing them to speak for Native Americans), and 2) that the prayers, chants, and stories of Native Americans collected by ethnologists and others are public property.

Tribal Technologies & Technological Tribalism

Bevis, William. "Native American Novels: Homing In." Recovering the Word: Essays on Native American Literature. Eds. Brian Swann and Arnold Krupat. Berkeley: U. California P, 1987, 580-620. Defines tribal identity as a transpersonal "self" completed in relation to 1) a society, 2) a past, 3) a place.

Carlson, Patricia Ann. "Square Books and Round Books: Cognitive Implications of Hypertext." Academic Computing (April 1990): 16-31. Follows Marshall McLuhan in arguing that round books (hypertexts) have replaced square books (print texts) and can help return us to tribal ways of knowing through communal contexts and an integrated sensorium.

Falling Through the Net: Defining the Digital Divide. 8 July 1999. U.S. Depatment of Commerce. 25 Aug. 1999 <http://www.ntia.doc.gov/ntiahome/fttn99/
contents.html>. Third report in the "Falling Through the Net" series on the telecommunications and information technology gap in America. Findings show that Native Americans (American Indians, Eskimos, and Aleuts) rank far below the national average in their access to telephones, computers, and the Internet.

Howe, Craig. "Cyberspace is No Place for Tribalism." Wicazo Sa Review: Indian Studies Journal 13: 2 (1998). Pimohtewin: A Native Studies E-Journal. 3 May 1999. U. Alberta. 28 June 1999 <http://www.ualberta.ca/~pimohte/
howe.html>. Examines how participation in the digital revolution in cyberspace may impact four distinct yet interrelated dimensions of American Indian tribalism: spatial, social, spiritual, and experiential. Argues that "the pervasive universalism and individualism of the World Wide Web is antithetical to the particular localities, societies, moralities, and experiences that constitute tribalism."

Kroeber, Karl. "Technology and Tribal Narrative." Narrative Chance: Postmodern Discourse on Native American Indian Literatures. Suggests that Native American ways of telling are incompatible with information technologies (he focuses on literary forms and audio recordings) that have served to marginalize and destroy native cultural traditions. These can be used as subversive tools but cannot express authentic "Indianness."

Martin, Glen. "Internet Indian Wars." Wired 3.12 (Dec. 1995). 13 August 1999 <http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/
3.12/martin_pr.html>. Describes efforts by Native Americans to expose misinformation about "Indian spirituality" disseminated online by a non-Native pretending to be Indian and efforts to develop a Native-owned and operated telecommunications network to provide Natives and and non-natives with access to accurate information on Native cultures.

McLuhan, Marshall and Quentin Fiore. The Medium is the Massage. New York: Random House, 1967. Argues that as it replaces print technology, electronic technology reshapes and restructures patterns of social interdependence leading to greater unification and involvement in a type of global village, a return to tribalism: multidimensional space, acoustic relations, communal rituals. Overview of McLuhan's theories.

Prindle, Tara. NativeTech. 1999. NativeWeb. 9 March 1999 <http://www.nativeweb.org/
NativeTech/>. A site dedicated to disconnecting the term "primitive" from perceptions of Native American technology and art. Emphasizes that tribal technologies are the product of specific communities, environments, oral traditions, and histories.

Teitelbaum, Sheldon. "The Call of the Wired." Wired 5.11 (Nov. 1997) 13 August 1999 <http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/5.11/
arctic_pr.html> Describes efforts to create a wireless telecommunications network in the two new autonomous territories of the Canadian Arctic, the Inuit eastern Arctic (Nunavut) and the western Northwest Territories, both of which have large techno-savvy native populations.

Cultural Adaptation

Allen, Paula Gunn. The Sacred Hoop: Recovering the Feminine in American Indian Traditions. Boston: Beacon P, 1986. "The tribal systems are static in that all movement is related to all other movement--that is, harmonious and balanced or unified; they are not static in the sense that they do not allow or accept change" (56).

Forbes, Jack. "Colonialism and Native American Literature: Analysis." Wicazo Sa Review 3:2 (Fall 1987): 17-23. Through colonialism native peoples are persuaded to become non-Indian, to feel hostile to Indian culture and shame in identifying with indigenous communities. Colonialism interferes with the evolution of new forms of literature because it does not allow literature to evolve slowly, gradually absorbing alien elements.

Kroeber, Karl. "American Indian Persistence and Resurgence." boundary 2 19.3 (1992). Suggests that American Indians' sense of cultural identity allows them to assimilate diverse elements from competing social entities. Views culture as transformation and recognizes the dynamically adaptive values of American Indian cultures.

Larson, Sidner. "Native American Aesthetics: An Attitude of Relationship." MELUS 17.3 (Fall 1991-92): 53-67. Defines acculturation as a borrowing process common to all Indian tribes, as opposed to assimilation in which one society is incorporated into another with a complete loss of identity.

Owens, Louis. Other Destinies: Understanding the American Indian Novel. Norman: U. Oklahoma P, 1992. Argues that traditional storytelling is a syncretic process appropriate for the adaptive, dynamic nature of American Indian cultures and requisite for cultural survival.

Sarris, Greg. Keeping Slug Woman Alive: A Holistic Approach to American Indian Texts. Berkeley: U. California P, 1993. Sees the necessity of adapting tradition and Indian idenity to changing historical circumstances. Argues that the blending of different religious and cultural ideals laid the foundation for a fierce Indian resistance.

Silko, Leslie Marmon. Yellow Woman and a Beauty of the Spirit: Essays on Native American Life Today. New York: Touchstone, 1996. "human communities are living beings that continue to change; while there may be a concept of the 'traditional indian' or 'traditional Laguna Pueblo person,' no such being has ever existed. All along there have been changes; for the ancient people any notion of 'tradition' necessarily included the notion of making do with whatever was available, of adaptation for survival" (200).