Native American literature

Introduction

also called  Indian literature  or  American Indian literature 

      the traditional oral and written literatures of the indigenous peoples of the Americas. These include ancient hieroglyphic and pictographic writings of Middle America as well as an extensive set of folktales, myths, and oral histories that were transmitted for centuries by storytellers and that live on in the language works of many contemporary American Indian writers. For a further discussion of the literature of the Americas produced in the period after European contact, see Latin American literature; American literature; Canadian literature; Caribbean literature.

General characteristics

      Folktales (folk literature) have been a part of the social and cultural life of American Indian and Eskimo peoples regardless of whether they were sedentary agriculturists or nomadic hunters. As they gathered around a fire at night, Native Americans could be transported to another world through the talent of a good storyteller. The effect was derived not only from the novelty of the tale itself but also from the imaginative skill of the narrator, who often added gestures and songs and occasionally adapted a particular tale to suit a certain culture.

      One adaptation frequently used by the storyteller was the repetition of incidents. The description of an incident would be repeated a specific number of times. The number of repetitions usually corresponded to the number associated with the sacred by the culture; whereas in Christian traditions, for instance, the sacred is most often counted in threes (for the Trinity), in Native American traditions the sacred is most often associated with groups of four (representing the cardinal directions and the deities associated with each) or seven (the cardinal directions and deities plus those of skyward, earthward, and centre). The hero would kill that number of monsters or that many brothers who had gone out on the same adventure. This type of repetition was very effective in oral communication, for it firmly inculcated the incident in the minds of the listeners—much in the same manner that repetition is used today in advertising. In addition, there was an aesthetic value to the rhythm gained from repetition and an even greater dramatic effect, for the listener knew that, when the right number of incidents had been told, some supernatural character would come to the aid of the hero, sometimes by singing to him. For this reason, oral literature is often difficult and boring to read. Oral literature also loses effect in transcription, because the reader, unlike the listener, is often unacquainted with the worldview, ethics, sociocultural setting, and personality traits of the people in whose culture the story was told and set.

      Because the effect of the story depended so much on the narrator, there were many versions of every good tale. Each time a story was told, it varied only within the limits of the tradition established for that plot and according to the cultural background of the narrator and the listeners. While studies have been made of different versions of a tale occurring within a tribe, there is still much to be discovered, for instance, in the telling of the same tale by the same narrator under different circumstances. These gaps in the study of folktales indicate not a lack of interest but rather the difficulty in setting up suitable situations for recordings.

      The terms myth and folktale in American Indian oral literature are used interchangeably, because in the Native American view the difference between the two is a matter of time rather than content. If the incidents related happened at a time when the world had not yet assumed its present form, the story may be regarded as a myth; however, even if the same characters appear in the “modern” present, it is considered a folktale. Whereas European fairy tales traditionally begin with the vague allusion “once upon a time,” the American Indian myth often starts with “before the people came” or “when Coyote was a man.” To the Eskimo, it is insignificant whether an incident occurred yesterday or 50 years ago—it is past.

      American Indian mythology can be divided into three major cultural regions: North American cultures (from the Eskimos to the Indians along the Mexican border), Central and South American urban cultures, and Caribbean and South American hunting-and-gathering and farming cultures. Though each region exhibits a wide range of development, there are recurrent themes among the cultures, and within each culture the importance of mythology itself varies. In North America, for example, each tale can usually stand alone, although many stories share a cast of characters; in contrast, stories developed in the urban cultures of Central America and South America resemble the complicated mythologies of ancient Greece and are quite confusing with their many sexual liaisons, hybrid monsters, and giants. In North America many mythologies (such as “the Dreaming (Dreaming, the)” of the Australian Aborigines) deal with a period in the distant past in which the world was different and people could not be distinguished from animals (animal). These mythologies are related to the concept that all animals have souls or spirits that give them supernatural power. Because humans have subsequently been differentiated from the animals, the animals appear in visions, and in stories they help the hero out of trouble. When there are many tales involving a single character—such as Raven, Coyote, or Manabozho—the transcriptions are linked together today and called cycles (cycle) (see e.g., Raven cycle). The body of American Indian folklore does not include riddles as found in African folklore, for example, nor does it include proverbs, though there are tales with morals attached.

      The importance of mythology within a culture is reflected in the status of storytellers, the time assigned to this activity, and the relevance of mythology to ceremonialism. Mythology consists primarily of animal tales and stories of personal and social relationships; the actors and characters involved in these stories are also an index to the beliefs and customs of the people. For example, the Navajo ceremonials, like the chants, are based entirely on the characters and incidents in the mythology. The dancers make masks under strict ceremonial control, and, when they wear them to represent the gods, they absorb spiritual strength. The Aztec ceremonials and sacrifices are believed to placate the gods who are the heroes of the mythology.

Oral literatures

North American cultures: Arctic, Northwest Coast, and California

Arctic

      North American Arctic culture can be divided into two major subgroups: one culture extending from Greenland to the Mackenzie River and the other west from that river to the Pacific Ocean. Canadian and Greenlandic Arctic peoples are generally called Inuit; the U.S. peoples of this region may be known as Eskimos and Aleuts or Native Alaskans. Arctic literature embodies simple stories of hunting incidents in which the heroes are sometimes helped through supernatural power. Other stories include themes in which people ascend to the sky to become constellations, maltreated children become animals (animal), and an orphan boy becomes successful. Still others surround the exploits and priestly magic of the shamans. In the region from Greenland to the Mackenzie River, Sedna is the highest spirit and controls the sea mammals; the Moon is a male deity who lives incestuously with his sister, the Sun. When she discovers he is her brother, she seizes a burning bundle of sticks and rushes away into the sky, the Moon pursuing her.

      There are many stories involving family life, as well as others that deal with the feuds between Inuit and the Native Americans south of them.

      The western Eskimos along the Pacific and Arctic coasts have the Raven cycle, a series of tales centred on Raven, a protagonist whose role ranges from culture hero to the lowest form of trickster (trickster tale). Many of the same plots and themes also occur in tales of the Northwest Coast culture. Around some coastal villages, a story about a flood that took place in the first days of the Earth is told. Many stories are especially intended for children and stress proper behaviour. They are often told by young girls to younger ones and are illustrated by incising figures in the snow or on the ground with an ivory snow knife. On the lower Yukon River, a migration legend is told about a long journey from east to west. The usual incident that breaks up this party of travelers is a quarrel, after which they divide into two groups, occupying separate villages, and for years make constant war on each other. Tales of hunting begin as personal adventures but become stylized with supernatural characters and events.

Northwest Coast (Northwest Coast Indian)

      There is greater similarity in the mythology of the various tribes along the Northwest Coast than in other regions of North America. Collectors of folktales have gathered a long series of stories told in the region from the mouth of the Columbia River through southeastern Alaska into a Raven cycle. The protagonists of these stories—from south to north, Coyote, Mink, and Raven—vary from culture hero to trickster. In each subarea the stories elucidate the origin of a village, a clan, or a family and are regarded as the property of that group. Thus, these stories can be used by others only through permission or, sometimes, purchase. Examples of this type of myth are Bungling Host, Dog Husband, and Star Husband. In Bungling Host, Trickster, after seeing his host produce food in various ways (e.g., letting oil drip from his hands), fails to imitate the magic methods to procure food and barely escapes death. In Dog Husband, a girl has a secret lover who is a dog by day and a man by night. When she gives birth to pups, she is deserted by her tribe. She then destroys her children's dog skins, and they turn human and become successful hunters. In some versions, parents lose all their sons to a monster, and, when a new baby is born, it grows rapidly, kills the monster, and restores the brothers. Star Husband, another widely known myth, relates the story of two girls sleeping outdoors who wish the stars would marry them. They ascend to the sky, marry the stars, and experience a series of remarkable adventures.

      Among the Kwakiutl of Vancouver Island, the mythology is represented in an elaborate series of dances that illustrate characters and incidents with masks, puppets, and other mechanical devices. The principal events during the winter ceremonial season, these ceremonies include initiation into the secret societies, the highest of which is the so-called Cannibal Society; members of this society recount ancient stories of cannibalism but, contrary to some accounts, do not practice cannibalism themselves. Less elaborate forms of this winter ceremonial are found among the southern tribes who base their activities on the quest for the guardian spirit and on the return of the spirits to those who have seen them in visions. In order to exorcise these spirits, their songs must be sung and their dances performed. The Salish-speaking (Salish) tribes of southern British Columbia and of Washington have less complicated costumes for this ceremonial, but their dancing is very interesting and vigorous. The attitude of the Northwest Coast Indians toward animals is expressed in rituals such as the first salmon ceremony and in the ceremonial treatment of the bear. When the first salmon of the spring run is caught, it is ceremonially cleaned and placed on a clean mat or a bed of fern leaves. It is welcomed with an address of thanks and promised good treatment. The entrails are wrapped in a mat and thrown into the river so that they can return to the land in the west where the salmon can tell how well he was treated. The salmon is carried to the house by a selected group—children, women only, or the family of the successful fisherman—and is roasted and eaten by the selected group, or a morsel may be distributed to each village resident. The bear is never killed wantonly. When seen, it is addressed in terms of kinship, an attitude that is shared by a variety of cultures.

California

      The many small tribes of California (California Indian) exhibit more unity in their mythology than is present in many other features of their culture. In the north-central area, the Kuksu cults enact the myths of the creator and the culture hero with Coyote and Thunder as the chief characters. In southern California, in ceremonies of the Chungichnich cults, contact with the highest god is achieved by smoking datura or jimsonweed, which produces hallucinations of animals. The boys initiated into the cults regard the animals as their guardian spirits. This concept relates the cult activity with the most fundamental feature of American Indian religion: the concept of the individually attained guardian spirit.

      Documentation of the mythology of the California tribes was thoroughly disrupted by Euro-American colonization, although some animal stories and a few themes about ill-defined characters have been recorded.

North American cultures: Southwest, Northeast, and Plains

Southwest (Southwest Indian)

      The Native Americans of New Mexico and Arizona, along with a few small tribes related to them in southern California, have cultural traditions with some features in common. In the folklore of the Southwest, the emergence and migration myths show the indigenous peoples (Hopi) emerging from an unpleasant underworld at the time when the Earth is not yet completely formed. They start a long trek southward, some looking for a sacred spot and others looking specifically for the centre of the Earth. In some instances they are led by a pair of culture heroes, the Twins, also called the Little War Gods, who help stabilize the surface of the Earth and teach the people many features of their culture, including ceremonials. When the people were weary during the migration, powerful spirit-beings known as kachinas (kachina) came and danced until someone made fun of their peculiar faces and insulted them. The kachinas allowed the people to copy their masks (mask) and costumes and then returned to their home in the underworld. Since that time the men from the kivas (kiva), the ceremonial chambers to which all the men belonged, have made these costumes and masks and have performed the dances necessary to stimulate and protect the harvest, bring rain, and promote general welfare.

      The Twin Gods of the Pueblo (Pueblo Indians) villages are a combination of the helpful god and the trickster. They sometimes behave like unruly children and tease their grandmother to death. Coyote, in the Pueblo literature, is always sly and is often caught in his own wiles. A group of very crude and vulgar tales about him exist. They have been transcribed from Spanish-colonization days and surround two characters who travel together named Djos and Ley, a corruption of “God” and “King.” Certain European tales (fairy tale), such as the Cinderella stories, have been added to the collections of Pueblo folklore.

      The Athabaskan-speaking tribes of the Southwest are the Navajo and the Apache. Nowhere in America are mythology and ceremonial more closely associated than among the Navajo, where the myths are poetically expressed through great chants (see Blessingway). The principal characters are the gods of the wind, the rain, the dawn, the Sun, the semiprecious stones, the sacred plants, corn (maize), tobacco, squash, and the bean. The ceremonials are intended to cure sickness, both mental and physical, and protect people on dangerous missions rather than to inspire any sense of worship. All the arts are combined in the ceremonies: the story itself, the poetic expression of it, the painting of the masks, the beautiful combinations of feathers in the headdresses, the sand paintings illustrating the story while the chants are sung, and, finally, the dancing of the characters who wear the regalia. This is one of the most inspiring ceremonials devised by the American Indian.

      The other Athabaskan-speaking people, the Apache, are divided into several groups, of which the Lipan are particularly interesting. The southernmost of North American tribes, they live partly across the Mexican border. They have an emergence myth and share with all southern Athabaskans the culture hero known as “Killer-of-Enemies” and his younger brother “Child-of-the-Water” (comparable to the Twin Gods of the Pueblos). One of the monsters in the tales is Big Owl, a destructive cannibal in the form of a large owl. The story of the man seeking spiritual power from the gods who goes down the Colorado River in a hollow log to reach the holy places where the spirits live is almost identical to its Navajo version. There is a Lipan Coyote cycle, but there are no Spanish-derived tales.

      The White Mountain Apache tell stories only between dusk and dawn and during cold weather. They have two major cycles: the creation myths (creation myth), in which something is created out of nothing, and the Coyote myths surrounding the trickster par excellence of that name. Two minor cycles centre on Big Owl and Gain, a supernatural being who lives in mountains and caves and underground worlds. The White Mountain Apache learned some European stories from captives in Spanish and Mexican towns in the late 18th and early 19th centuries.

      The Jicarilla Apache divide their didactic stories into sacred and secular, telling them at night during the winter, with a break at midnight for a festive meal. The Jicarilla are seriously engaged in their mythology, into which they inject objects of modern life such as the telegraph and the automobile. They also have creation stories and the legend of the man who went down the Colorado River in a hollow log. Among the trickster stories, the Coyote cycle is well developed.

      The Colorado River tribes, which are closely affiliated with the people of southern California, constitute the last division of the Southwest cultures. These tribes were Christianized by missionaries so early that little of their mythology was recorded. It is known that Coyote played an important part in their sacred stories and that he was also portrayed as a deceitful trickster. Like the Pueblo tribes, the Luiseño also migrated, looking for the centre of the world, where their god, Wiyot, had died. His death was the first among the people, and they lost their immortality. Wiyot later returned as the new moon. There are many stories about the stars, which were regarded as the souls of the dead. The Chungichnich cult was also known here but may have come within the mission period.

Northeast (Northeast Indian)

      The northeastern Algonquin were the first groups of American Indians north of Mexico to have protracted contact with Europeans, so their own ways of living were disrupted at a very early date. Some of their culture traits can still be found among the Central Algonquin to the west, and some of the most elementary stories are known to all groups in this region. This mythology centres on a culture hero known as GlusKap to the Mi'kmaq and as GlusKabe among the Algonquin; his consistently altruistic character and humanlike appearance distinguish him from many other culture heroes. He carries out the usual exploits, one of the most popular being the episode in which he kills Monster Frog, who has been impounding the water. Though he revels in the trickster adventures of all American Indian characters, he appears somewhat exempt from the crude buffoonery of other culture heroes.

      To the west, the Central Algonquin developed the Midewiwin, or the Grand Medicine Society—shared by the Eastern Sioux—whose activities revolved around the quest for a vision that would bring them in direct contact with supernatural beings who instructed them in curing ceremonies. The members of the society were not shamans, had no individual powers, and were effective only when they acted together. In its use of certain mnemonic devices containing a series of symbols used for instructing initiates, the society foreshadowed an approach to writing.

      The Iroquois, who developed one of the great confederacies of American Indians, had a strong religious and mythological background for their folklore. In their creation story, which is the basis of their religious beliefs, they acknowledge a supreme being “beyond the conception of man.” This “being” sent from heaven is a woman who in her descent fell on a big turtle imbedded in mud. She gave birth to a daughter conceived with the turtle; this daughter in turn bore two sons. The good one was born first; the other was born through the mother's side and killed her. The sons grew up and helped their grandmother finish the formation of the Earth. The Iroquois had curing societies similar to the Midewiwin; their members were not shamans, and they cured in a group rather than as individuals.

      Many tribes in the Southeast exhibited cultural systems very similar to those of the northeastern tribes; others, especially in the lower Mississippi Valley, had a more elaborate religion and mythology that divulged a definite relationship to the higher cultures of Mesoamerica.

Plains

      The expansive area of North America between the Mississippi River and the Rocky Mountains, extending from the Gulf of Mexico to the American subarctic, embodied many cultures whose various rites and ceremonies emerged from a common background. Many tribes were seminomadic and depended more on buffalo hunting than on agriculture for their living. The more sedentary groups, the village tribes, included the Mandan and the Hidatsa. Marginal groups, which seem to have continued an older form of Plains culture before the advent of the horse, lined the borders of the Plains area.

      The Sioux narrate the following creation story: the Old Man, Waziya, lived beneath the Earth with his wife. Their daughter married the Wind and bore four sons, the winds North, East, South, and West. Together with the Sun (sun worship) and the Moon, the winds controlled the universe, and a series of very involved stories tell of their powers. As the world was being formed, Iktoma the trickster made trouble wherever he could. The usual plots are found in this collection of trickster stories. In order to reach the supernaturals, or “controllers,” rituals and ceremonies had to be conducted. The most important ritual was the Sun Dance, because the Sun was one of the principal powers.

      In contrast to the Sioux, the Crow are a bit more lighthearted about their approach to the universe. Their culture speaks of a creation myth in which Old Woman's Grandchild, the son of an Indian woman and the Sun, destroys monsters. He then goes to the sky and becomes Morning Star. The genealogy of this character very closely resembles the Navajo myth of Changing Woman, the Sun's mistress who bore the children Monster-Slayer and Child-Born-of-Water. This concept of change into an astral body is quite widespread in the Plains. In a Cheyenne version of the Dog Husband story, the mother and her children go to the sky and become the Pleiades constellation. The Crow liked to express themselves poetically, and often they recited in song. The military societies have many songs that express their high aims and others that are songs of bravado. In many of their amusing stories, there are plays on words that are often difficult to translate.

      The Comanche, another of the Plains tribes, believe that the Great Spirit created some people but that there were white people existing before them. A flood washed these white people away, and they turned into white birds and flew away. A secondary spirit was then sent to create the Comanche. But they were not perfect at first; therefore, the spirit came a second time, giving them intelligence and showing them how to make everything. There are the usual trickster stories, with Old Coyote as the central figure, as well as many stories based on war exploits.

Central and South America (Mesoamerican civilization)

      The cultures of Central America (Mesoamerican Indian) created the most complex civilizations of the so-called New World and are considered comparable to the Classical cultures of the Mediterranean. Included are the Aztec of Mexico, the Maya of Central America, and the Inca of Peru.

      The Maya, who will be mentioned again below, have a very complicated creation myth relating the several stages at which man did not satisfy his creator. After each stage he was destroyed, and another attempt to create a more perfect being was made. Since Maya culture at its height must be reconstructed from pre-Columbian art and hieroglyphics carved into stone, most that is known about their mythology has been derived from religious and ceremonial art (see Written literatures (Native American literature)).

      The Aztec had four mythological eras: those of (1) the Water Sun, which was destroyed by flood, (2) the Sun of the Earth, which was destroyed by earthquake, (3) the Wind Sun, which was destroyed by a giant, with only Quetzalcóatl, the feathered serpent, remaining, prophesying the destruction of the Earth by wind and the evolution of humans into monkeys, and (4) the present Sun of Fire, which will end in a general conflagration. Quetzalcóatl, the survivor of the age of the Wind Sun, brought civilization to the people. This mythology, which was the basis of the ceremonial life, was maintained by the ceremonial priest, but there were also common folktales that resembled those of North America.

      Much more information about the Aztec exists than about the Maya, because Aztec civilization was still functioning at the time of the Spanish conquest, whereas Maya culture had completely changed, and the old traditions were almost unknown. What is available is the result of painstaking scholarly work in the analysis of hieroglyphics, codices, and traditional practices.

      The Inca civilization of Peru is often grouped with the sophisticated cultures of Mesoamerica, because it resembles them more closely than it does its South American neighbours. As far back as mythological history can be traced, the Incas worshipped Viracocha, the creator. He was the omnipotent being who took part in every mythological incident. He created people from painted stone dolls, a specific way of saying that humans evolved from the living rock. He also had the capacity for infinite self-multiplication, and some of his offspring became local gods. Another cycle of creation in which Viracocha functions bears some resemblance to the periods listed for the Aztec. The “Origin People” came out from their caves, and the creator organized the process of living for them. They became the ruling class. Then the “Wilderness People” came from other caves and became the common people, who increased rapidly. Many diverse languages and cultures developed. The next cycle produced the “Wartime People,” who placed a premium on being ruthless, strong, and cunning. They took whatever they wanted and forced people to move to more unfavourable places; in this way they spread the population. In all these myths the flood is present, which requires the re-creation of man after each incident.

      Since Inca mythology covers a large and difficult terrain, local cults developed in many places, utilizing the same characters in different incidents. When all the incidents are assembled, they seem very confusing and contradictory.

South American and Caribbean rural cultures

      There are so many cultures among the Indians of South America, and so little is known about many of them, that a selection was made of four tribes, some of whose mythology has been published. The Aymara in northern Chile share the culture hero-creator Viracocha with the Incas. According to the Aymara, he rose from Lake Titicaca, created the Earth, the sky, and humans, and then resubmerged. Humans disobeyed him, and he therefore led them to Tiwanaku and turned them into stone. Viracocha created the Sun, Moon, and stars because humans, whom he created again, lived in darkness. Another mythological character of the Aymara culture is Thunnupa, a bearded white man from the north who opposed polygamy and chicha, a beer commonly drunk at festivals. Animal tales are also very common in this culture, some having Aesop-like plots. Fox is the comical character in these tales, as he is in many European and Asian folktales; it is sometimes postulated, incorrectly, that these tales were brought in with the Spanish (Spain) conquest.

      The Mapuche culture, also in Chile, relates tales characterized by fairly long narratives about such supernatural characters as Shooting Star, who may be a cannibal, a hybrid monster, a winged serpent, a ghost, or an apparition. Again, the wily Fox is the principal character in the animal stories, though he is often outwitted. Folktales are told at night and are accompanied by mimicry and gestures.

      The many folktales of the Cágaba, who inhabit the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta in Colombia, are religious in nature, having supernatural characters who arrange the world for humans and try to control the demons that plague them.

      Finally, the Chibcha, who live in Colombia north of the Orinoco River, have a body of mythology that reflects the ethos of immediacy in their culture; the stories are cosmological and ritual, and they lack all perspective of time. Many are concerned with Bochica, a culture hero who is one of the major gods of the Chibcha pantheon.

      Many islands in the Caribbean were populated by people who came from the northern parts of South America. The Arawak were the first Indians encountered in the New World by Columbus at Hispaniola. Typical migrants from the tropical forests of South America, they combined the concept of a guardian spirit with fetish worship and fabricated idols that represented plants, animals, and human spirits. The Sun and the Moon, who are connected with a myth about human emergence from a cave, together with various astral beings and a culture hero, were typical characters of Arawak mythology.

      The Arawak Indians were soon decimated by Spanish invaders in the Caribbean, and by 1535 only about 500 were left at Hispaniola. The Spanish therefore brought in blacks and other Indians to work on plantations. This situation also occurred in Puerto Rico and Jamaica, where the Indian cultures were totally changed because of the influx of blacks and the subsequent intermingling. One outstanding collection of tales from this region consists of stories about Spider, a culture hero of West African folklore.

Written literatures

      One of the great scholars of Maya culture, J. Eric Thompson, has said:

In the New World only Maya culture extends to us the privilege of sharing its thoughts and its struggles, its triumphs and its failures, for in the glyphs the dead past has left a chart to guide the living present along the corridors of time.

      In the 16th century the area of hieroglyphic writing did not coincide with that of Maya speech. It appears that the hieroglyph originated in such languages as Olmec and Zapotec. Though people may have used hieroglyphs at an early date, they seem to have never passed the rudimentary stages. Maya (Mayan hieroglyphic writing) hieroglyphs on stone and wood are confined to the Classic period (CE 300–900). Inscriptions on monuments record the passage of time, often the close or decline of certain periods, and invoke images of the gods, the “rulers” of each day, to which they could bring fortune or disaster. Written codices (codex) comprised books of divination and a mixture of prophecy and history that were similar to the historical codices of Mexico. Three codices are particularly important: the Dresden Codex, the Paris Codex, and the Madrid Codex (in two parts), each named for the cities in whose museums the codices are currently exhibited. Maya hieroglyphic writing manifested a calendric system and also certain religious concepts of the Maya culture that reveal a mythology of surprising richness, demonstrating the independent growth of New World civilization.

      The Maya culture (Maya) is divided by scholars into four periods. First is the Formative, or middle-culture, horizon in the second half of the millennium before the Common Era. From this period the earliest known carving was found, dated in terms of the Maya calendar at CE 320. Second is the Classic Period (CE 300–900), which saw the development of the great cities, architecture, sculpture, and ceramics. At this time, a series of sophisticated deities appeared that were no longer directly related to the soil or the elements. The culture became divided into two levels, a theocratic government and priesthood and a lay culture that remained simple and agricultural, with home industries, a simple family organization, and a religion built around the personification of powers of nature, which was served by a nonprofessional priest. Toward the end of this period, influences from Mexico made themselves felt. The third period, or the early Post-Classic Period, from 900 to 1200, followed a transition period when metal appeared. The first gold-working area was in present-day Panama and Costa Rica. In this period, the Mexicans or the Chontal Maya conquered and settled in several large cities in Yucatán, including Chichén Itzá. Itzá, the conqueror of Chichén Itzá, introduced Mexican architecture and religion, including the cult of Quetzalcóatl, the feathered serpent god, as well as militaristic organizations such as the fighting orders of the Eagle and the Jaguar. Influences from Tula also modified Maya culture. Some mural texts and codices also were made during this period.

      Concurrently with the Classic Period of the Maya, the peoples of Mexico were also developing a written language, which was not as highly sophisticated as that of the Maya and could more correctly be called picture writing (pictography). The pictographic writing of the Aztecs was too simple to record literature, offering no way of making general statements or expressing abstract ideas. Though there was no alphabet in this writing, a picture of an object or an animal could be combined with another and given a new meaning. This writing was taught by the priests who were entrusted with the education of the young boys.

      Pictographic writing developed in several areas, including the Mixtec-Puebla region and Texcoco. Meanwhile, the Aztecs were becoming more powerful along the outer borders of a highly civilized region, and about 1200 they moved closer to the centre of activity. As the government became more centralized, reports had to be submitted, and pictographic writing provided a satisfactory medium for this task. Even after the Spanish conquest, these reports were still presented in the same manner and form, and even when the writing was scribed by the Spaniards, Indians continued to do the illustrations.

      After the conquest, historical accounts were written that reiterated the past history of the principal Aztec regions. Much of what is known today about the early history of the Aztecs is derived from these works. A method of recording Nahuatl, the language of a large portion of Mexico, was combined with Spanish to supplement the graphic records. It is believed that some of the graphic records represent oral traditions possibly learned in chants that were recited on ceremonial occasions.

Study and evaluation

      Many large collections of Indian folktales exist that are historically important, though they lack information necessary for a modern study of the works. To make such a study, the folklorist must have a biography of the raconteur and the circumstances and exact date of the collection. If the study is to encompass literary style as well as theme, the folklorist must know whether the tale was originally told in a European language or, if an interpreter was necessary, know his relationship to the raconteur and his experience as an interpreter.

      In the 1920s and '30s, anthropologists experimented with a type of ethnographic recording in certain tribes, which served two purposes: it explained cultural activities and attitudes of a culture, and it supplied the anthropologists and folklorists with a new vocabulary not found in the transcribed folktales. The folktale has served as a source of study for linguistics scholars, and tales recorded in an accepted phonetic code have always been a great asset to their study also. In order to get more text of this kind, the famous anthropologist Franz Boas (Boas, Franz) taught a Kwakiutl to write phonetic text, which was then translated. Anthropologists also realized that the folktale reflects the culture in which it is told and sometimes keeps up with culture changes or, conversely, retains historic patterns of the culture. Again a pioneer, Boas conducted a study of Tsimshian mythology, recording the pattern and customs of Tsimshian life as revealed in the myths.

      Students of mythology in the 19th century were interested in distributional studies, or following a plot or a group of motifs around the world to discover how myths spread and how plots disintegrate and become motifs in other plots. They concluded that the life of a folktale among preliterate people depended upon how often it was heard and remembered and that each place in which it was found became part of its history.

      Studies in the 20th century centred on the personality traits of a culture as expressed in their tales, the search for symbols that articulate human experience in a culture, the ways in which a raconteur's analysis of the ethical code expressed in a story often reveals the ethics of a particular society, and other topics.

Erna Gunther Ed.

Additional Reading

North America: United States and Canada

Biographical and critical studies are found in two reference works, Janet Witalec, Jeffery Chapman, and Christopher Giroux (eds.), Native North American Literature (1994); and Andrew Wiget (ed.), Dictionary of Native American Literature (1994); the latter work also contains topical and genre essays. Bibliographies include Jack W. Marken (compiler), The American Indian Language and Literature (1978); Daniel F. Littlefield, Jr., and James W. Parins, A Biobibliography of Native American Writers, 1772–1924 (1981), with more than 4,000 entries and a supplement (1985); Roger O. Rock (compiler), The Native American in American Literature (1985), which includes regional and local works usually not found elsewhere; and A. LaVonne Brown Ruoff, American Indian Literatures (1990).Broad studies can be found in Garrick Mallery, Picture-Writing of the American Indians (1893, reprinted in 2 vol., 1972), an exhaustive consideration of the visual forms of communication adopted by many tribes, particularly strong in Plains Indian research; Stith Thompson (ed.), Tales of the North American Indians (1929, reprinted 1971), one of the earlier and more complete studies of American Indian legend; Abraham Chapman (ed.), Literature of the American Indians: Views and Interpretations: A Gathering of Indian Memories, Symbolic Contexts, and Literary Criticism (1975); Paula Gunn Allen (ed.), Studies in American Indian Literature: Critical Essays and Course Designs (1983), with a useful bibliography; John Bierhorst, The Mythology of North America (1985), a comparative analytic study; Gerald Vizenor (ed.), Narrative Chance: Postmodern Discourse on Native American Indian Literatures (1989), a collection of essays; Arnold Krupat, The Voice in the Margin: Native American Literature and the Canon (1989), an analysis of the place of Native American literature in the body of American literature; A. LaVonne Brown Ruoff, Literatures of the American Indian (1991); and Louis Owens, Other Destinies: Understanding the American Indian Novel (1992), a critical study. Problems of translation are addressed by Brian Swann (ed.), On the Translation of Native American Literatures (1992), a collection of essays on both North and South American stories, most given bilingually, and Coming to Light: Contemporary Translations of Native Literatures of North America (1994).Literature of the 20th century in particular is examined in Charles R. Larson, American Indian Fiction (1978); Kenneth Lincoln, Native American Renaissance (1983), a scholarly survey of songs, poems, tales, and novels; W.H. New (ed.), Native Writers and Canadian Writing (1990); Laura Coltelli (compiler and ed.), Winged Words: American Indian Writers Speak (1990); and Hartmut Lutz, Contemporary Challenges: Conversations with Canadian Native Authors (1991), interviews covering a variety of topics, such as literary influences and the issue of Native American voice and identity.Native American oratory is discussed in Melville Jacobs, The Content and Style of an Oral Literature: Clackamas Chinook Myths and Tales (1959), a discussion of a method by which oral literature can be understood in terms of its own content; Louis T. Jones, Aboriginal American Oratory (1965), a collection of Indian speeches and orations; Virginia Irving Armstrong (compiler), I Have Spoken: American History Through the Voices of the Indians (1971, reissued 1984), a graphic résumé of oratory from the 17th to the 20th century, emphasizing the eloquent speech of North American tribes; W.C. Vanderwerth (compiler), Indian Oratory: Famous Speeches by Noted Indian Chieftains (1971), a collection of orations by 37 individuals, recorded from 1750 to 1910; Dennis Tedlock, The Spoken Word and the Work of Interpretation (1983), a treatment of the oral traditions of the Zuni (of the southwestern United States) and the Quiché (of Guatemala); Joel Sherzer and Anthony C. Woodbury (eds.), Native American Discourse: Poetics and Rhetoric (1987), a wide-ranging analysis that includes stories—both ancient and modern—from various Native American peoples; Brian Swann and Arnold Krupat (eds.), Recovering the Word: Essays on Native American Literature (1987); and David Murray, Forked Tongues: Speech, Writing, and Representation in North American Indian Texts (1991), with a focus on the translation and interpretation of Native American oral and written literature.Recent anthologies with useful introductions include John Bierhorst (compiler), In the Trail of the Wind (1971, reissued 1990), a survey of American Indian poetry from many tribes; Rayna Green (ed.), That's What She Said: Contemporary Poetry and Fiction by Native American Women (1984); and Jamake Highwater (ed.), Words in the Blood: Contemporary Indian Writers of North and South America (1984). Earlier collections include George W. Cronyn (ed.), The Path on the Rainbow: An Anthology of Songs and Chants from the Indians of North America, new and enlarged ed. (1934, reissued as American Indian Poetry, 1970), a volume of Indian poetry from many tribes; A. Grove Day, The Sky Clears: Poetry of the American Indians (1951, reissued 1983), a compilation of American Indian poetry, including more than 200 poems and lyrics from 40 tribes; and Knud Rasmussen (compiler and trans.), Beyond the High Hills (1961), a sensitive collection of poems from the Hudson Bay Eskimo people, illustrated with photographs.

Mexico, Central America, and South America

In addition to the relevant titles cited above, other useful texts include Delia Goetz and Sylvanus G. Morley (trans.), Popol Vuh: The Sacred Book of the Ancient Quiché Maya (1950, reissued 1983), a complete version of the most important example of Maya literature to survive the conquest; Ralph L. Roys (trans.), The Book of Chilam Balam of Chumayel, new ed. (1967), an account by the prophet of Chumayel village recorded in 1782, rich in Mayan ritual and oral traditions; Miguel León-Portilla, Pre-Columbian Literatures of Mexico (1969, reissued 1986; originally published in Spanish, 1964), a selection of myths, hymns, poetry, and prose accounts from Aztec, Maya, Mixtec-Zapotec, and Otomí peoples of Mexico recorded and discussed in depth; John Bierhorst, The Mythology of South America (1988), and The Mythology of Mexico and Central America (1990), comparative studies; and Miguel León-Portilla (ed.), Fifteen Poets of the Aztec World, trans. from Spanish (1992), a Nahuatl anthology with English translations and useful historical and biographical information.

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