My Thoughts on There, There Micro lecture #2
While watching the second micro lecture, Indigenous literatures are multimedia, I found it really interesting how much indigenous culture and stories were preserved through means other than text. From what I gathered from the two micro lectures, the article, and Tommy Orange’s There, There, there seems to be a real focus on stories in indigenous culture. I think that the fact that those stories tend to be mostly oral is super interesting as it could cause a lot of variety as it gets passed from storyteller to storyteller each with their own inflections, small detail changes, and biases. But perhaps the details are less important than the messages that they are meant to convey. For example, the wampums tell stories, but they do not specify any detail. They rather just allude to events with basic imagery that helps the viewer recount the event it refers to. The Quipus do not have letters, words, sentences, or punctuation, but they too are able to recount history with very little detail that allows the observer to then expand upon them with their own details. This to me connects back to There, There as I see now the reason for the continued occurrence of storytelling being important. For example Dene’s want to record the oral history of Native people living in Oakland or Opal Victory’s mother telling her about the importance of passing on stories to everyone and that everything is made up of stories. Another interesting thing that I picked up from the micro lecture was that the Western world has had a hard time deciphering Native stories and is in need of Native help. When I first started understanding the importance of oral storytelling, I thought it was contradictory that Tommy Orange would write a text about how important it is. After watching the microlecture and understanding the disconnect between the western world and Native stories I wonder if Tommy Orange was intending to put his work into a format that the Western world would feel more comfortable consuming in an attempt to reach and educate his target audience.
Oral history is an interesting topic, especially for a culture that features numerous languages/dialects and has often been misinterpreted when it comes to stories. I think there's a lot to pull from there, even enough for a research excursion.
ReplyDeleteI think that the different ways of preserving stories are so interesting - whether through a book, a story, or another type of media. There's so many options and it's cool to consider the benefits and drawbacks of each one.
ReplyDeleteHey Griffin! When learning about oral storytelling, I was also wondering about the importance of maintaining the precise words of a story versus its overall message. I also hadn't considered what you said about the intrigue of Tommy Orange authoring a physical book partially about the importance of oral storytelling. Do you think if There There was made into an audiobook it would come full circle?
ReplyDeleteThe Quipus also interested me with how void they are of what modern time considers normal formats of communication. The idea of representing knots as numbers is really unique.
ReplyDeleteGriffin, I also think that the message that the stories are trying to convey are the most important aspect because most of the stories are fictional. I also really like your connection to There There. When writing my blog post, I found it hard to connect what I learned to places in the story outside of the prologue, but you did a great job.
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