The New Land

1. The New Land A Study of Native Voices

2. The first settlers were entranced by the presence and the strangeness of the Native Americans

3. They did not realize that these Americans had Cultural values Literary Traditions

4. The Literature was entirely oral for the tribes of North America had no developed writing systems

5. Oral Literature Made up of 1. myths 2. legends

6. Devices 1. Repetition 2. Enumeration 3. Incremental development 4. Ritual beginnings and endings 5. Specific structure 6. Terse style

7. Functions 1. Beliefs about nature of physical world

8. 2. Beliefs about social order and appropriate behavior

9. 3. Beliefs about human nature and the problem of good and evil.

10. Myths 1. Primal world 2. Beings are animal spirits in more or less human form.

11. Legends 1. Culture hero orders the world.

12. 2. Culture hero turns animal people into animals. 3. Other beings become landmarks.

13. Tricksters 1. Disorder and change 2. See the underside of life

14. American Literary Heritage Formed by 1. Extensive oral tradition 2. First written works of the colonists

15. When Columbus reached America in 1492, the continent was already populated with several hundred Native American tribes

16. Europeans from different nations came in contact with them at different times

17. Tribes differed greatly 1. language 2. government 3. Social organization 4. customs 5. housing 6. Methods of survival

18. When did they arrive? No one knows for sure. 12,000 years to 70,000 years ago Native Americans have been on the continent thirty times longer than Europeans. Europeans did not start arriving until the late 1500’s.

19. What were the earliest Americans doing? Folklorists have recorded a rich variety of Archeologists have deduced a great deal from artifacts. Songs, legends, and myths

20. Usually the Native Americans greeted the Europeans as friends.

21. They instructed the newcomers in agriculture woodworking

22. They introduced them to maize beans squash snoeshoes maple sugar toboggans birch bark canoes

23. Had it not been for the help of the Native Americans, many more of the Europeans would have succumbed to the bitter Northeastern winters

24. Songs All three songs are dream or vision songs

25. In both the Chippewa and the Teton Sioux tribes, young boys and occasionally girls sought a vision

26. They fasted and prayed 4 days and nights

27. A Nature spirit such as the spirit of a animal Tree Rainstorm would give the seeker a song which conferred special power

28. Traditional Songs 1. Were never written down 2. They were chanted or sung often to the rhythm of drums and rattles

29. Long complicated rituals are typical of agricultural groups

30. Priests changed the words of the song to invoke different spirits such as those that brought rain or protected the crops.

31. Priests or song leaders spent months learning a ritual and its song cycle.

32. Mistakes were thought to destroy the power of the song

33. The Earth Magician was the creator of all things

34. Pima, Chippewa, and Teton Sioux songs 1. Incorporate imagery from nature 2. Native Americans believed that everything in nature including people had a spirit. 3. Spirits were called on for help in daily life and when dealing with other tribes.

35. Native Americans viewed themselves and everything in nature as different manifestations of the same thing. Such views are described as animistic pantheistic or