Native American Short Stories

I took the Native American IAT and the Age IAT tests. I thought my results would be that I would have some association with Native Americans because I have Native American in my ancestry. My results were that I had little or no association between Native American and American with Foreign and American. I am not sure if I agree with them or not and that maybe from family history. I have no ideal if this method is truly effective and I would try to make sure that I am being considerate about other people's culture when teaching students and interacting with their families. I took away from this test that I learned new things about my thought process.

In American Indian Stories, University of Nebraska Press Lincoln and London edition, the author, Zitkala-Sa, tries to tell stories that depicted life growing up on a reservation. Her stories showed how Native Americans reacted to the white man’s ways of running the land and changing the life of Indians. “Zitkala-Sa was one of the early Indian writers to record tribal legends and tales from oral tradition” (back cover) is a great way to show that the author’s stories were based upon actual events in her life as a Dakota Sioux Indian. This essay will describe and analyze Native American life as described by Zitkala-Sa’s American Indian Stories, it will relate to Native Americans and their interactions with American societies, it will

Kind and selfish, deep and shallow, male and female, and foolish and wise aren’t always words that are associated with each other, quite the opposite in fact. However, when it comes to the trickster tales of Native Americans, each word is associated with the other and describes more or less the same person or animal. To Native American people a trickster affects the world for an infinite number of reasons, including instruction and enjoyment. A trickster, like the name implies, is a cunning deception. A trickster can be a hero. However, at the same time he could introduce death. How is that heroic? Why would a group of people want to remember a person that brings punishments such as death? The function the trickster tales have/ had on

Popular culture has shaped our understanding and perception of Native American culture. From Disney to literature has given the picture of the “blood thirsty savage” of the beginning colonialism in the new world to the “Noble Savage,” a trait painted by non-native the West (Landsman and Lewis 184) and this has influenced many non native perceptions. What many outsiders do not see is the struggle Native American have on day to day bases. Each generation of Native American is on a struggle to keep their traditions alive, but to function in school and ultimately graduate.

“Tell me a fact and I’ll learn. Tell me the truth and I’ll believe. But tell me a story and it will live in my heart forever.-Native American proverb” This is a Native American proverb that shows how important storytelling and stories are to the Native Americans and their culture. Storytelling was a big way of teaching their lifestyle to their younger generation. Storytelling is very important to the Native American culture because it helps explain their way of life, faith, and helps teach life lessons to the younger generation.

In her book American Indian Stories, Zitkala-Sa's central role as both an activist and writer surfaces, which uniquely combines autobiography and fiction and represents an attempt to merge cultural critique with aesthetic form, especially surrounding such fundamental matters as religion. In the tradition of sentimental, autobiographical fiction, this work addresses keen issues for American Indians' dilemmas with assimilation. In Parts IV and V of "School Days," for example, she vividly describes a little girl's nightmares of paleface devils and delineates her bitterness when her classmate died with an open Bible on her bed. In this groundbreaking scene, she inverts the allegation of Indian religion as superstition by labeling

From as early as the time of the early European settlers, Native Americans have suffered tremendously. Native Americans during the time of the early settlers where treated very badly. Europeans did what they wanted with the Native Americans, and when a group of Native Americans would stand up for themselves, the European would quickly put them down. The Native Americans bow and arrows where no match for the Europeans guns and cannon balls. When the Europeans guns didn’t work for the Europeans, the disease they bought killed the Native Americans even more effectively.

Myths, legends, and folklore from the various Native American tribes that once inhabited the current day United States have puzzled and intrigued anthropologists, sociologists, and historians alike. These stories, meticulously passed down from generation to generation through the sacred art of storytelling, open a window into the past. Through this window, one can witness the cultures, belief systems, and lifestyles that thrived before European settlers ever set foot upon American soil. Although these tribes, numbering in the five hundreds, were both linguistically and regionally diverse, their stories still contains key identifying factors that typify Native American oral literature ("An Introduction"). The characteristics

Native American literature from the Southeastern United States is deeply rooted in the oral traditions of the various tribes that have historically called that region home. While the tribes most integrally associated with the Southeastern U.S. in the American popular mind--the FIVE CIVILIZED TRIBES (Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Creek, and Seminole)--were forcibly relocated to Indian Territory (present-day Oklahoma) from their ancestral territories in the American South, descendents of those tribes have created compelling literary works that have kept alive their tribal identities and histories by incorporating traditional themes and narrative elements. While reflecting profound awareness of

George Gustav Heye Center - The Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Indian is a fascinating building at the Bowling Green area of Lower Manhattan. It’s close to Battery Park that displays an elegant view of the water. You can see ferries floating by headed towards Staten Island, since South Ferry Terminal is nearby. It allows you to appreciate the hidden gems of the city located in the outskirts Manhattan. One of those very treasures is the museum mentioned previously.

Native Americans had their own way of passing down wisdom of their culture. They passed their stories orally, that today is read in history books. Even after the written word had spread across the globe, Native Americans still primarily used storytelling to pass down their spiritual, mythological, and historical beliefs. Many people have heard one of these passed down stories, also known as myths or folktales.

Like a coin dropped between the cushions of a couch, traditional oral storytelling is a custom fading away in current American culture. For Native Americans, however, the practice of oral storytelling is still a tradition that carries culture and rich history over the course of generations. Three examples of traditional oral stories, “How Men and Women Got Together”, “Coyote’s Rabbit Chase”, and “Corn Mother”, demonstrate key differences in perspectives and values among diverse native tribes in America.

“What I’m about to tell you, Corporal, cannot leave this room. Under no circumstances can you allow your code talker to fall into enemy hands. Your mission is to protect the code… at all cost.” In the movie, Windtalkers, this is how a commander wants his marine to treat the paired Navajo code talker. That is, if it’s necessary, his marine could kill the Navajo, just like abandoning one of his properties. Even in the mid 1900s, the Native Americans were still treated not as human beings, but rather, machines; therefore, it is not hard for us to imagine how even more frightening the Native Americans’ circumstances were in the early days when they were first colonized by the western settlers. In Deborah Miranda’s “Indian

Throughout history, and all over the world, mythology has been developed as a way of explaining the unknown and coping with one’s existence. Why does the sun shine? Well, seemingly, to generations past, something is controlling the universe, so there must be a god in charge of the sun and many other natural phenomenon. During the creation of Native American myths, “there was much in the way of free-range food, but hunting wasn't as easy as getting up in the morning, taking a stroll and shooting a few passing bison with your bow” (Godchecker). Times were tough, “even Plains societies who lived off the prolific buffalo fell under the threat of starvation at times” (Godchecker). Finally, “when herds were found, the people were grateful and

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)