Native American literature began before pen and paper, and before the Europeans came to North America. The Native Americans had already developed a rich history of their own using oral tradition to pass on their stories and myths. This was because the many tribes were so diverse, and at the time, they lacked an actual written language. The oral tradition was not only the telling of a story, but a performance to retell the story of many different themes and ideas. These ideas include a tribe's cultural background, historical events, but most Native American literature contains morals or being creation myths or folklore. Many of their stories had aspects such as relationships between humans and animals and respect for nature and the entire natural …show more content…
A much-unprepared animal is the young sloth named Sid, who is scurrying to give himself a slight chance to survive. During his adventuring for food, he encounters a pair of furious animals, but is saved by the wooly mammoth known as Manny. Sid, impressed by Manny's bravery and intelligence, decides to be by his side throughout the ice age. As they begin to band together, they come across a human baby that was left by his own tribe by mistake after an attack by saber-tooth tigers. Manny and Sid retrieve the baby, and are now determined to return this baby to his family. On the other side of the attack, Diego, another saber-tooth tiger in his pride, is sent to track the mammoth and sloth along with the baby so they can get a good meal. He later catches up to the group, and takes claim to the baby since him and his pride were hunting the humans, but Manny refuses because he genuinely cares about getting this baby home. …show more content…
Another time, the child is eager to play and begins to slide around on Manny as if he was a jungle gym. Manny sees this within the child, and moves his trunk around and plays with the baby, as if Manny was playing with the baby, instead of the baby playing with Manny. Another aspect present in Ice Age is the actual theme of the entire movie, this being togetherness. Being one with a tribe and being together was very important to Native American literature. Thus, the idea of the tribe all together being one family almost is very abundant among Native American literature. (Snipes)The main characters banded together, and all had a common task that they wished to accomplish. This task was to return the baby to his own family. This common goal led these characters across many obstacles, but these obstructions caused Manny, Sid, and Diego all to become friends, and almost like a family, just as Native Americans did. This relationship is mainly displayed through the dialogue of the movie. An example of this dialogue is during a scene in the movie shortly after Manny has saved Diego’s life, and have continued their journey, “Diego: Why would you do that? You could've died trying to save me. / Manny: That's what you do in a herd: you look out for each other.” (IMDb) This dialogue is showing not only a friendship, but also a personality trait is shown through Manny's words. Knowing that he needs to get this baby home, Manny not only begins to care about the
These stories have a continued overlapping influence in American Fiction and have remained a part of the American imagination; causing Americans to not trust Native Americans and treat them as they were not human just like African Americans.
Imagination does not always involve dealing with realistic feelings or reading books and having to understand ideas in an intellectual way. Imagination does not need to be taken seriously; intelligence, on the other hand, should be taken seriously. Giving a child a book will test his reading and literacy skills. Putting a child in front of a 20/20 broadcast will confuse him. Reading books are meant for learning, not to expand one’s imagination. Children are not supposed to believe that television and video games are bad for them when this addictive hobby only makes them happy. It is only an excessive amount of television entertainment that will truly damage a child’s intellect. Adults, however, understand both how to read and the difference between reality and fantasy worlds and the effects television has on their intelligence.
Lliu, K., and H. Zhang. "Self- and Counter-Representations of Native Americans: Stereotypical Images of and New Images by Native Americans in Popular Media." Ebscohost. University of Arkansas, n.d. Web. 19 Apr. 2014
Our spirits Don’t Speak English: Indian Boarding school is an 80 minute documentary that details the mental and physical abuse that the Native Americans endured during the Indian Boarding school experience from the mid 19th to the mid 20th century. In the beginning going to school for Indian children meant listening to stories told by tribal elders, parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles and storytellers. These tales past down from generation to generation were metaphors for the life experience and their relationships to plants and animals. Native children from birth were also taught that their appearance is a representation of pure thoughts and spiritual status of an individual.
Creativity is the reason why we have our very own light in this world of darkness.The Cherokee tribe had a myth called The Grandmother spider steals the sun and they believed that without the Grandmother spider there side of the world would have no sunlight.In a world of darkness the animals of the land get together and attempt to steal sun light from the other side of the world.With many failed attempts they started to lose hope until the Grandmother spider brings her idea to bring the sun, with her creativity she is successfull and there side of the world is nomore with darkness.The Cherokee came up with this story to give meaning to how the world gained sunlight.Native American culture shows archetypes throughout all of there stories that help give a story to explain where,what,when, and how things came to be.
Such stories and their settings establish the Native American presence on this land from time immemorial by relating how the Creator placed the First Peoples in their traditional homelands. Homelands are stable and permanent cultural and physical landscapes where Native nations have lived, and in some cases, continue to live to the present day. (Handsman 13). Creation stories thus reflect the central place their relationship with the land occupies in the culture and hi...
King, Thomas. “Let Me Entertain You. The Truth About Stories: A Native Narrative. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2005. 61-89. Print.
Perpetuation of Native American Stereotypes in Children's Literature Caution should be used when selecting books including Native Americans, due to the lasting images that books and pictures provide to children. This paper will examine the portrayal of Native Americans in children's literature. I will discuss specific stereotypes that are present and should be avoided, as well as positive examples. I will also highlight evaluative criteria that will be useful in selecting appropriate materials for children and provide examples of good and bad books. Children will read many books as they grow up.
The American institution has raised countless generations with misconceptions and lies regarding various foreign cultures. During the 1950’s the educational system in America was given the responsibility of teaching children the horrors and injustices they would suffer if the "evil" communist took over the world. Schools taught students that communist wanted to take away music, apple pie, baseball, and anything else that Americans cherished. Students learned that it was best to believe in the righteous of America. The preceding discussion has much in common with the treatment that Native Americans have received from picture books in America.
Writers have adopted these themes and have fit them into contemporary times. Most recently author Toni Morrison has taken the African- American folklore themes and adapted them to fictional literature in her novels. Morrison comments on her use of the African-American oral tradition in an interview with Jane Bakerman. "The ability to be both print and oral literature; to combine those aspects so that the stories can be read in silence, of course, but one should be able to hear them as well. To make a story appear oral, meandering, effortless, spoken. To have the reader work with the authorin construction of the book- is what's important"(Bakerman 122).In all of Morrison's novels it is easy to see her use of African- American folklore along with traditional fict...
Comstock, George A., and Erica Scharrer. Media and the American child. Burlington, MA: Elsevier, 2007. Print.
Discuss the distinctive qualities that define the way stories are told in Native American cultures. How do these differ from what you might have thought of as a traditional story?
Stories of Native Americans. The smoke floats through the air and surrounds the village people. The eyes of everyone are on the village elder and no one speaks a word. This is a time to share the great history that the new generation must learn. Without written language, history and important lessons are spoken to the children of Native American villages.
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 discuss the major themes of the book and why the author wrote it, it will describe Native American society, its values and its beliefs and how they changed and it will show how Native Americans views other non-Natives.
..., DF (2010). Generation M2: Media in the lives of 8-18 year olds. Merlo Park CA: Henry J Kaiser Foundation