Folklore Teaching Native American Folklore

Folklore

Teaching Native American Folklore to Children

This paper will examine Donna Norton's typology of Native American folklore and examine how this typology can be a useful pedagogical tool when approaching a diverse student body and when teaching a multicultural curriculum.

Classifying Native American folklore into different types of tales, such as "Setting-the-World-in-Order Tales," "Family Drama Tales," "Trickster Tales," "Threshold Tales" and "Combination Tales," is not simply an effective way to introduce aspects of native culture to young children in a diverse classroom (Norton 2005: 82-87). It can also be a powerful method to draw connections between the children's own cultures and Native American mythology. For example, "Trickster Tales" are "common in folklore all over the world," perhaps the most culturally pervasive kind of tale (Norton 2005: 84). The Trickster of the Pacific North American Indians is called the Raven; another common trickster is the Coyote, and also the Rabbit. Children can read tales of these animals, and compare them with other tricksters from other cultures, such as Anasi the Spider from West Africa. Children can also examine the presence of trickster mythology in modern American media, in films and television, where vulnerable people (like animals and children) trick stronger authority figures with clever and underhanded methods. Also, a teacher might ask why certain animals, like rabbits and coyotes, have common 'trickster' appeal, as opposed to other animals. "Trickster tales are almost always placed in the 'animal tales' genre, with the trickster... identified with a particular animal. These include the mouse deer in Southeast Asia, the fox in Japan, the coyote and the spider among the North American Indians, the tortoise, rabbit (or hare) and spider in West Africa, and the mantis in Southern Africa" (Starr 1999).

Setting-the-World-in-Order" or origin tales are another likely point of connection between many different tales from different cultures (Norton 2005: 82). Encouraging children to compare the similarities and differences of different flood narratives might be another way to make multicultural education come to life in a personally meaningful fashion (Norton 2005: 83). Multicultural education does not only have to be comparative, however. "Family Drama" tales may lend themselves to creative involvement with the narrative. Children can use modes of expression from modern culture, like creating a play that depicts the different protagonists of a tale such as "The Spider Woman" of the Navajo (Norton 2005: 85). This sense of personal involvement and using everyday objects, even modern artifacts to recreate a myth is a way to make folkloric lessons and Native culture real and relevant.

Threshold tales are also likely to be popular for children, as they examine transitional phases like adolescence or transformation. Reading a book like Storm Boy about the protagonist's "separation, initiation, and return" may be useful to examine during transitional phases, like the end of the school year or the coming of spring (Norton 2005: 86). Change is common to all cultures during childhood, and provides a useful point of connection when children are, for example, going through a Bar or Bat Mitzvah, going away to camp for the first time, or making their first communion.