Children,myth and storytelling: An Indigenous perspective

Abstract

This essay explores childhood education, storytelling, and the nature of myth from an Indigenous perspective. Aspects of Indigenous teaching and learning are discussed related to the ways myth and storytelling have traditionally functioned in Indigenous communities in the education of children. The deeper psychological nature of myth as an integral part of human learning, teaching, and socialization is also explored. These explorations form the basis for advocacy toward the re-vitalization of story as an essential foundation for intergenerational community education and as a component of global childhood education.

Whenever men have looked for something solid on which to found their lives, they have chosen not the facts in which the world abounds, but the myths of an immemorial imagination.

Campbell (1983).

Introduction

In Indigenous community, all children were considered special, sacred gifts from the creator. They were seen to have a special quality all their own which was respected and prized by the community. They were considered to have a direct connection to special spirits in nature. They appeared as special players in the guiding myths of some tribes. They were bringers of light and good fortune to the community. Indeed, they were the physical example of the “vitality” of a tribe. They were the carriers of the future (Cajete, 1994: 116–164).

Parenting was actively undertaken by all the adult members of a child’s extended family, clan, and tribe. All adults were considered teachers and any adult member of a group could guide, discipline, or otherwise play a direct role in “educating” a child. Each adult was conditioned to care for the wellbeing of the group and each of its members. Each adult was admonished to concern themselves with the development of each child into becoming a complete person, “for the good of the people.”

Theory is a Western academic construct, and in this context, one may say that my theoretical grounding is that of lived experience. This essay will present my perspectives as an Indigenous educator growing up with stories in an Indigenous community. To remember is a way to re-know and re-claim a part of our life. Remembering these kinds of stories is also a way of revitalizing the experience of Indigenous education for youth in community. When we are growing up, we are gifted with stories from our parents, our grandmothers, our grandfathers, aunts, uncles, and the elders of our communities. As we become elders, it becomes our turn to retell the stories we have heard and to create new ones. We find ourselves surrounded by children hungering for stories. What shall we tell them? Maybe we will tell them that listening and thinking about stories is the first foundation of Indigenous education. Maybe we will tell them that listening to stories is a way to know how things have come into being and how they are related to everything in the world—plants, animals, places, the stars, and we as human beings. Maybe we will point out a natural place and tell them how they and their people are grounded in the story of that place. Maybe we will tell them that story is sacred to Indigenous peoples and that stories, in their mythic forms, instructed the people on how to live a good life with proper relationship to all things. Maybe we will tell them how they will always be growing in relationship to their own story and the story of their people and place. Maybe we will tell them how we are blessed by watching them grow into becoming one with their people and their place—until it becomes their turn to tell their stories (Heidlebaugh, Tom. Personal interview. 12 February 1985).

Stories present deep insights into the affective dimension of human learning, socialization in community, and the role of story in the transfer of cultural knowledge and values. In this regard, the fact that story and myth still form an integral part of traditional forms of education among many Indigenous Peoples is a challenge to the linear, objectified, material epistemology of the Global North and its focus on a homogeneous Western educational paradigm that tends to trivialize story and myth as fairy tale and figments of imagination appropriate only for young children.

However, human beings are social beings and the development of understanding for the complex nature of social relationships forms a foundation for the socialization of children within their families, community, and cultural group. Stories are integral to traditional Indigenous epistemologies. The deep psychological mechanisms associated with myths, stories, and storytelling facilitate the development of not only self-knowledge but also social and communal knowledge on the part of children. We need to develop insights into the deeper psychology of learning through story. We need to reflect on and develop insights into how stories are internalized and passed on through personal relationships which develop as a result of both peer and intergenerational mentoring. Children’s psychology and social development are enhanced through the telling and processing of stories. Donna Eder (2010) in her book, Life Lessons through Storytelling, illustrates how stories act to affect children’s sense of ethics and how this knowledge can be applied to the development of more enlightened curricula that help develop children’s ethical character.

In the global multicultural realities that characterize modern societies today, it is important for teachers and students to learn and practice “contexting” information in culturally sensitive and holistic ways. Making story the basis of teaching and learning provides one of the best ways to do this kind of contexting and enhancing of meaning in all areas of content. It is possible to teach all content from the basis of story and once again allow teachers to truly become “story tellers and story makers.” Teachers tell stories of subject content all the time. But what modern teachers have to understand is that knowledge has to be contexted in the lived experience of students to have real and lasting meaning. Stories that have meaning for students come from the cultural and personal experiences of the students, families, and communities. Stories and the art of storytelling are a vehicle for meaningful learning, and teaching is, after all is said and done, essentially a communicative art form based on the ancient tribal craft of storying (Eder, 2010).

Story and Indigenous teaching

Story is one of the most basic ways that the human brain structures and relates human experience. Everything that humans do and experience revolves around some kind of story. The predominance of television and the various other forms of mass media in modern life is largely because these are vehicles for storytelling, that is, the transfer of information contexted in such a way as to relate a message or convey a meaning. Story is the way humans context information and experience to make it meaningful. Even in modern times, we are one and all “storied and storying beings.” At almost every moment of our lives, from birth to death and even in sleep, we are engaged with stories of every form and variation.

Stories were the first ways humans stored information; they were the basis of the oral tradition of all Tribal peoples. Since the beginning of human history, Tribal cultures have ordered the understanding and meaning of human existence through their remembrance and enactment of stories in ritual, song, dance, and art. Stories have deep roots stemming not only from the physiology and contexting process of the brain but also from the very heart of the human psyche. Stories reflect aspects of the way the human mind organizes and remembers information. At a deeper level, they reflect the topography and language of the human spirit. However, stories go beyond education and the recitation of words. Indigenous stories related the experience of life lived in time, place, and spirit. They were not only a description or narrative but an echo of a truth lived and remembered. They remain the most “human” of human forms of communication (Cajete, 1994: 117).

It may be that we are all born with a “sense” for story and a basic wisdom of educating is to provide a context in which this natural human sense may be nourished. Indigenous education evolved through and simultaneously imparted a kind of “awareness of story” that exercised and provided a context through which imagination and the unconscious could develop at all stages of life. Indeed, Indigenous storytelling engaged all levels of higher order creative thinking and imaging capacities. Indigenous storytelling developed a fluency of metaphoric thinking and mythic sensibility which served Indigenous people in their understanding of their own inner psychology and maintenance of their spiritual ecology.

The basis of traditional Indigenous education is embodied in the structures of myth and oral expression. Moreover, the development of four basic disciplines of thinking related to the creative process was engendered as a part Indigenous storying. These disciplines were attention, creative imagination, flexibility, and fluency of thinking. In turn, each of these disciplines of storying was exercised within the context of telling, enacting, singing, creating, or dancing a story which personified Indigenous life and meaning. These contexts of Indigenous story are as viable today as they were in the past and can form a creative foundation for contemporary Indigenous education by Indigenous teachers. For non-Indigenous teachers, story should become more than just extracurricular activities reserved for free time and elementary grades. The legacy and the innate learning potential of storying must be recaptured and made an integral part of contemporary education at every level. Mythological thinking, creative imagination, story making, and storytelling should become as important to educators as the focus on “common core standards.”

Myth as a body of deep knowledge

Tribal myths contain tremendous psychological energy that illuminates and contexts the acts of both individual and community when it is appropriately accessed. Every body of Tribal myth contains a variety of stories which are culturally important to a Tribe and reflect their uniqueness. Tribal myths are filled with Tribally significant metaphors, symbols, images, and creative linguistic/visual forms which are emotionally affective for members of a Tribe. They are essentially interpreted accounts of the world experienced through the lives of the people of the tribe. As a whole, they are reflections of the role of people and spirits which affect a Tribe’s world. They are a body of explanation which forms the Story of the People as they perceive and relate that story. Donald Fixico in his book, American Indian Mind in a Linear World (2003), re-enforces this statement of the depth of Indigenous stories in that they touch on every aspect of a Tribe’s sense of itself and its way of being in the world.

Every tribe created vehicles for skillfully and creatively accessing the inherent energy contained in their body of myth. Through the telling, performance, and artistic expression of myth, Tribal teachers actively brought their Tribal bodies of myth alive and made its lessons relevant to their audience’s time and place. While keeping true to the core meanings of their myths, tribal teachers continually improvised, reorganized, and recreated the particular elements of a myth to fit their audience, the situation, and their own personal expression. In reality, every myth is “renewed” with each time and in each place it is told. Myths live through each teller and through each audience which hears and actively engages them. Myths and their enactment in every form were the way a tribe remembered to remember their shared experience as a people.

There are as many ways to tell a myth as there are myth tellers, and there are many ways to view myth as well. Western academic schools of “mythic” thought have ranged from evolutionist, to symbolic, to psychoanalytic, to functionalist, to structuralism, to folkloric orientations in their attempts to explain the human phenomena of myth. Yet, only recently have Western scholars turned to the “keepers of myth” for guidance. And, only recently, have some Western scholars of myth begun to cultivate an appreciation for these keepers and reverence for the power of myths in shaping human learning and experience. Indeed, humans are storytelling animals. Story is a primary structure through which humans think, relate, and communicate. We make stories, tell stories, and live stories because it is such an integral part of the way of being human. Myths, legends, and folk tales have been a cornerstone of teaching in every culture. These forms of “story” teach us about the nature of human life in all its dimensions and manifestations. They teach us how to live fully through reflection on, or participation in, the uniquely human cultural expressions of community, art, religion, and adaptation to a natural environment. The myths we live by actively shape and integrate our life experience. They inform us, as well as form us, through our interaction with their symbols, images, and meanings (Vecsey, 1991: 13–14).

Myths explain what it means to live in community with one another. They explain human dependence on the natural world and essential relationships which must be maintained therein. They explore the life-and-death matters of human existence and relate such matters to basic origins, causes, or relationships. They reflect on the concerns which are basic and crucial to humans’ understanding of themselves. Creation, survival, relationship, healing, wholeness, and death are the consistent themes of myth in every culture, place, and time. In short, myths are everything that the people and community which create them are.

The function of myth is as diverse and complex as human life and cultures. The myths that we live by glue our communities together through shared metaphors of identity and purpose. Myths help to balance individual psychologies and connect them to the greater wholes of the Tribe, natural environment, and global community. Myths “resound” the spiritual essence of religion and ritual in life-related terms. Myth mirrors the paradoxes of life and reflects the truth behind every paradox.

Myth, in both its expressions through narrative and performance, is a communicative art form which integrates other art forms such as song, dance, and visual arts in its expression. Indeed, myth is a primary contextual field for artistic expression and may have led to the development of “visual and material art” in the early stages of human culture. Art is one of the languages of myth (Pfeiffer, 1982).

Finally, myths live or die through people. Myths, as human creations, are messages—as well as a way of conscious reflection—which live through the people who share them through the breath of their thoughts, words, and actions.

Living through myth means learning how to use the primal images and processes which myth presents in a creative process of learning and teaching which connects our past, present, and future. Living through myth also means learning to live a life of relationships to ourselves, other people, and the world based on an appreciation, understanding, and guidance from our inner spirit and our wealth of ancestral/cultural traditions.

To “seek” such a life is a foundational metaphor of Indigenous Education which invites the empowerment and cultivation of a creative life of learning. Moreover, it is the images and symbols brought to life through myth at the personal and group levels that provide impetus for such a creative life:

Mythic images are pictures that involve us both physiologically in our bodily reactions to them and spiritually in our higher thoughts about them. When a person is aware of living mythically, he or she is experiencing life intensively and reflectively. (Goldburg, 1979: 47)

Connecting with personal and cultural mythology

The connection between personal mythology, cultural mythology, and the education process is complex and dynamic. Suffice it to say that, since our personal stories fuel our emotions and shape our beliefs, as we come to understand the principles by which our personal mythology operates, we will become more able to consciously participate in its development. This is equally true of one’s personal educative process since the two types of understanding are intimately intertwined. Integrating personal and cultural mythology through imagery is a primary component of the Indigenous education process.

Our individual personal mythology forms a dynamic web which informs the very essence of our lives. Awareness of the influence of our personal mythology on the unfolding process of our living is an essential part of self-knowledge. Such awareness begins by becoming more completely conscious of the way in which our personal myth interpenetrates that of the multicultural universe in which we live.

This awareness becomes first apparent through an in-depth exploration of our personal and “cultural” origins. Exploring cultural origins is inherently a holistic process of learning our “connections” and a process of affirming our evolution as an inter-dependent human being. It is becoming aware that we all live a “mythic” life, and the “mythic life” which we live is guided every step of the way through our own process of “mythologizing.” In understanding this process, we become conscious of our relationship to our family myth, our societies’ conventional myths, and the universality of the human condition.

To be unconscious of these mythic relationships and our own personal mythology, we doom ourselves to look through a distorted lens at other people, the world, and ourselves. A level of “critical consciousness” as it concerns our own and our culture’s mythology is essential to a true learning and teaching situation. The Indigenous education process infuses itself with opportunities for exploring various levels of personal and cultural mythology.

The beginning of this personal mythic journey in the Indigenous educative process focuses on mythic images and meanings. For it is through this focus that one begins the process of living a mythically literate life—that is, to live life with conscious reference to more than day-to-day concerns, to live a life with greater understanding and appreciation for cultural/ancestral roots, to live a life of cultivated relationship with significant people, practices, institutions, and the world, based on guidance from inner and creative sources. The mythic image and its meanings at the personal and group level provide the visual language for the beginning of such a learning process:

Myth is the language that most closely approximates the natural workings of the psyche. The language of myth is made up of images, symbols, and psychological undertones. And this language has both personal and group dimensions which interface constantly.” [At the personal level] human consciousness reflects deep mythological images while simultaneously being shaped by the mythos of the surrounding culture. “Myths talk to psyche in its own language; they speak emotionally, dramatically, sensuously, fantastically.” (Feinstein and Krippner, 1988: 1–8)

Myth presents a doorway through which human and natural energy moves in the expressions of human culture. A key to expressing Indigenous education in a contemporary sense includes attempting to influence the way Indian people construct their understanding of themselves and their place in a contemporary world. This understanding stems from their Indigenous mythic language (both personal and cultural) as it finds contemporary expression in ritual, dream, art, dance, music, and social interaction. Tracking the way myth acts to move people and communities is an important first step in learning how to use myth effectively in the context of teaching.

Tracking a story: Concentric rings of Indigenous education process

American Indians are heterogeneous, yet also homogeneous, people. Although this statement sounds paradoxical, it is valid from a mythological perspective. Indigenous peoples of the Americas share elementary ideas and cultural values whose symbolic meanings and archetypes are similarly interpreted from tribe to tribe. In spite of anthropological and archeological statements that American Indians are diverse and as different from one another culturally as Germans and Chinese, Indigenous people from the tip of South America to Alaska recognize their innate “relatedness’. As a whole, we share guiding thoughts, elemental ideas, symbols, and metaphors that cannot be denied. One such shared body of elemental ideas and archetypes occurs in the area of reliance on a mythic tradition and storytelling that uses metaphor as an integral part of the educational process, which, in turn, forms the foundation for various expressions of educational philosophy in a Tribal context.

The working of a metaphor is a creative way of exploring the teaching processes using myth in Tribal societies. Such a process is a foundational dynamic of Indigenous teaching and learning. This working evolves around the symbols and metaphors in myth and is a way of asking for knowledge.

The metaphor of tracking and the symbol of concentric rings are examples of Tribal analogies which can be worked in such a way as to present a verbal and visual image as profound teaching. It is exactly this working in the context of myth which leads to profound and highly creative Tribal expressions of teaching and learning.

Tracking involves good observation, common/natural sense, following an intuitive yet discernible direction, and developing intuition and visual thinking. Tracking in the literal sense simply involves observing the “rings” that are coming into you and quieting the rings that are going out from you. Tracks can be read at many different dimensions and from many perspectives. In reality, tracking strategy begins with scanning the “rings” of a landscape with a kind of “macro-vision.” Such scanning eventually leads one through smaller concentric “rings” down to a micro-focus on a specific animal.

The “rings” which I refer to in this discussion are those which comprise observable inter-relationships in nature and social/psychological processes. That is, every process in nature and society occurs in what can be called a “context” of concentric rings.

Concentric rings radiate from every “thing” and every process. The concentric ring provides a visual symbol of relationship; it is a way of visualizing how all processes radiate concentric rings, which in turn affect other rings of other processes. The symbol of concentric rings is useful in seeing how one thing affects another, how one thing leads to another, and how one thing is connected to another.

The concentric ring is also a basic symbol of wholeness. It allows for representation of wholeness as the interconnection of many concentric rings of relationship. The mapping of concentric rings of relationship is a major activity which occurs in primal peoples’ mythology, ritual, and adaptation to their respective natural environments. In all of these concentric rings of wholeness, there is always the awareness of a particular aspect of nature, reordering it and then representing it in some form. This process is one of the universals of the creative act and as such is a primary dimension of science and art.

Tracking from this perspective is intimately involved with learning how to see “connections” between concentric rings. The analogy of tracking then can be used in a variety of ways to illustrate an essential process in Indigenous learning—that is, the process of seeing connections, being aware of concentric circles of inter-relationship and following the “tracks” of a parable or mythic process. The process of tracking itself comprises a group of concentric rings beginning with the physical, followed by the psychological, then the social and metaphysical. These rings of tracking represent inter-related dimensions of process and “field” thinking.

Field thinking within the context of tracking simply means becoming aware of a particular “field of relationships” and being able to pick out specific possibilities within this field which directly relate to what one wants to find or to do.

Tracking at the first level usually requires the ability to see connections of a physical nature. For example, an experienced indigenous hunter of wide experience in a particular environment can tell a fox is coming when a blue jay begins to scold in just a certain way. How does he know this? Well, in all likelihood, sometime in the past the old hunter observed and heard a blue jay scolding a fox in just this way. The old hunter fixed that image and that sound in his memory. He saw a specific connection within a field of possibilities. When that particular blue jay scold is heard again, the hunter remembers the sound and the image.

Tracking at the physical level requires the development of the ability to discern patterns using our visual acuity, to discern differences in sound, feeling, smell, and even taste. It involves the ability to know, using these basic human perceptual abilities, tracking of a particular problem or situation.

Tracking in the metaphysical sense is basically following the concentric rings of the physical, psychological, social, and spiritual to their various origins. Mythology presents the primary example of this process.

Try to visualize tracking of the trace of an animal through the eye of the hunter, then into the mouth of the hunter, then back through his hand, his body, and his psyche in the forms of art, dance, song, and ritual. Through myth and its associated rings of expression, the hunter celebrates the animal to make more animals, to dance more animals, to increase the fertility and vitality of certain animal species, and, in doing so, to keep the concentric rings rotating and inter-relating in a positive way. This is the essence of the hunting mythology of early man (Stokes, John. Personal interview. 30 January 1985).

Primal mythologies abound with examples of tracing and “working” the tracks of “the ancestors” through time and through a geographical landscape of mythology whose concentric rings radiate to the present time and place. A key to understanding mythological tracking of concentric rings is developing the ability to think “upside down.” In mythological contexts, things are reversed and inside out. For instance, the peyote hunt of the Huichol Indians of Mexico is characterized by tracing of the steps of the Huichol ancestors to the mythological land of Peyote, which is called “Wirikuta.” This reverse tracking of the ancestor’s steps occurs over a geographical and mythological landscape in which those Huichol seeking the peyote are led by a “Mara a kame” (Huichol Shaman) through five concentric rings of relationship. Each of these rings is symbolized by its own state of mind, its own ritual, its own natural energy, and geographical landmark. The geographical landscape from the Sierra Madre, where the Huichols now live, to the desert flats just outside of San Luis Potessi, where the peyote cactus is to be found, represents the trail of the ancestors’ tracks. Along the geographical landscape of this trail are natural landmarks which are representative of the concentric rings of important natural and life-sustaining “energies” of the earth. These are the archetypal energies of earth, wind, fire, water, plant, and animal. Each of these energies is represented in Huichol traditional yarn painting by mythological animals, beings, and entities. They are symbolic of the natural shaping energies of the earth’s landscape (Myerhoff, 1974).

Tracking the ancestors’ mythological steps, then, takes the Huichol through different levels of knowing in reference to peyote, Huichol origins and myth, Huichol cultural philosophy, and the natural energies of the Huichol’s natural habitat. This sort of metaphysical tracking through concentric rings of inter-relationship illustrates how landscape, natural energies, plants, and animals affect each other. Noting these relationships and their mutual effects is the beginning of “primal” science and the wellspring of Indigenous knowledge.

For instance, within the contexts of Native American mythologies, certain geographical features personify “ties” between natural processes. Generally, such features are looked upon as sacred places. These natural features may be specific formations, springs, lakes, rivers, mountains, or other natural places. All these features physically, visually, and metaphysically represent concentric rings in nature. Many are symbols of life sustainers such as corn, deer, buffalo, fish, rain clouds, and forests. An understanding of the relationships inherent in these “ties” is essential to survival. Therefore, much attention is given to ways of knowing and learning about important natural phenomena.

Myths present a way of mapping a particular geographical landscape. Relating the stories associated with a particular geographic place is a way to begin to develop a cognitive map of that place and of its concentric rings of inter-relationship. Migration myths, for instance, are tracking stories through a geographical landscape. In many Native American migration myths, it is implied that the “ancestors” left representations of themselves in various natural forms or phenomena to remind people how to act and how to relate to the natural world.

Through the symbol of concentric rings, myth is able to give us a visual image of how one thing in reality is like something in myth and vice versa. Every myth has its concentric rings of meaning and is told and retold in this way. The telling of a myth begins with a simple version for children, then moves to a slightly more complicated version for adolescents, to a deeper version for initiates, and to a still deeper version for the fully mature.

The symbol of concentric circles in its many manifestations throughout the cultures of the world universally seems to connote a process event. That is, the concentric ring, when it is used in primal myth, ritual, or art, denotes that something happened here or that something is happening here—it might be a waterhole, a ceremony, a distinct natural phenomena, or an important life activity.

For instance, the concentric ring represents a major process symbol in the mythology, ritual, and art of the Australian aborigine. As represented in Aboriginal traditional art, the concentric ring is a place of an important event of sacred significance and great insight. The mandala and the medicine wheel are other symbolic exemplifications of significant process events. Since myth mirrors and analogizes natural process, it is no wonder that one of the simplest symbols represents one of the most complex processes of both nature and the human psyche—that of inter-relationships.

The symbol of concentric rings images the fact that everything is unique and leaves its own signature track. Yet it also shows that all things share likenesses which are to be found in the overlap of rings.

Knowledge grows and develops outward in concentric rings. Likewise, concentric rings can also form the basis of learning how to track ideas and intuitions, how to observe fields of knowledge, and how to see patterns and connections in thought and natural reality.

Indigenous education in “process” is basically following tracks in a particular field or level of natural, social, or spiritual reality. This tracking at any given dimension requires opening one’s mind to the possibilities within each of the many concentric circles within that dimension. Learning how to blend the mythological, aesthetic, intuitive, and visual perspectives of nature with the scientific, rational, and verbal perspective is an integral part of Indigenous education. Education, from this viewpoint, involves learning to see nature holistically. This requires a continual shifting and interplay between the two complementary perspectives mentioned. Facilitating the learning of how to orchestrate these two ways of viewing nature toward the greatest effect must become a major activity of contemporary Indian education.

In this Indigenously modeled approach, a first track begins with a symbol. It is these symbols which are the connection or keys which access the myth, the relationships of concentric circles, and knowledge and perceptions of natural realities. For instance, in teaching and learning a process discipline such as science, beginning with a mythological track and following that track, through its concentric circles from its abstraction to its reality and then back again, presents one of the most natural and potentially creative approaches.

The Southwestern Indian symbol of the humpbacked flute player, sometimes called “Kokopeli” or ant man, provides a case in point: The “Kokopeli” is a mythological symbol which represents the bringer of seeds, fertility, sexuality, abundance, the spreading of art and culture. The “Kokopeli” is a natural process symbol which is “pregnant” with meaning.

As such, the symbol of “Kokopeli” is surrounded by many myths; these myths in turn abound with metaphors representing various dimensions of the procreative processes of nature. Each of these processes is encircled by a body of psychological, aesthetic, and cultural expressions. These expressions in turn are tied to realities which are observable and which form a basis for Indigenous teaching through myth.

The “Kokopeli” is a mythically contexted visual metaphor which acts as a kind of “gatekeeper.” That is, through “tracking” its meaning through its multiple levels of use and its various appearances in myths from Mexico to the Southwest United States, one reaches one of the foundational roots of an Indigenous archetype and mythic tradition. There are other “gatekeepers” connected to other foundational Puebloan mythic roots. Thinking Woman, The Corn Maidens, and Spider Woman are some of the others. Tribal-specific “gatekeepers” exist for the Dine’, Lakota, Iroquois, Ojibway, Huichol, Inuit, and every other tribe from Alaska to the tip of South America. The complex of Raven myths in the Northwest, the Coyote/Trickster myths of the West and Southwest, the Inapi (Old Man) myths of the Northern Plains, the Sedna myths of the Far North, the “Abiding Stone—Inyan” and White Buffalo Calf Woman myths of the Central Plains, and the Tree of Peace and Great Turtle of the Northern Woodlands are only a few of the American Tribal mythic bodies, each of which contains numbers of “gatekeeper” symbols whose tracking leads to the roots of a Tribal tradition and its mythic knowledge base.

This methodology is a form of creative analysis in which the logic for myth and its validation is internally consistent with the perspective of a Tribe’s understanding an essential “message” reflected through the myth.

Those gatekeeper symbols which are widely used in a particular region and which have a wide breadth of meaning can be explored within the context of myths from the same region. A major Indigenous cultural or philosophical concept, they provide ideal vehicles for ways of seeing, understanding, and relating considered important by a group of tribes in a region.

Selected excerpts of myths from various regions of Tribal America will be used in some of the forthcoming chapters to illustrate key characteristics of each of the foundations of Indigenous Education.

The myth of “Water Jar Boy” is a story shared by the Pueblos near Santa Fe, New Mexico. Its roots begin in a mythic past that is ancient and reflective of the way the visual symbolic form of “Kokopeli” is employed in both the oral narrative and petroglyphic illustration of this Pueblo teaching story.

Some northern Pueblo grandmothers tell this story at key times as children are growing up. It is a teaching story, a story about why things are and the importance of coming to know the sources from which human life proceeds. There are, of course, deeper levels of meaning in such stories, and as one hears these stories throughout one’s life, the deeper levels of meaning reveal themselves when we are ready to hear them and internalize their teaching in our lives.

Water Jar Boy

A young girl named Water Flower lived with her father and mother in a very old village called “place where the waters come together.” The girl was very beautiful, kind, and good of heart. When she became of age, many boys of the village tried to win her eye. However, she was very shy and did not pay attention to any of the boys of the village. She did not want to leave her father and mother since they were quite old and needed her help (Water Jar Boy, 1926: 193).

Water Flower liked to help her mother make pottery, especially the water jars which her mother made so well. One day her mother asked her to help mix the pottery clay. She went to a spring near the village to get a special colored clay to decorate the pottery. While Water Flower was mixing the clay with her feet near the spring, she began to feel very strange in her stomach. The more she mixed the clay, the more clay covered her feet and the stranger she felt. She stopped mixing the clay and went home. She told her mother how she felt mixing the clay, but her mother thought nothing of it and told her not to worry.

A few days passed and Water Flower started to feel something moving in her belly. She did not want to tell her mother and father. But soon she became very ill and when her mother felt her belly and knew that her daughter was with child. When the child was born, the mother saw that it was not like any other child. It was a beautiful little water jar. Her father came in and upon seeing the beautiful little jar said, “It is a special gift and although we do not know how this has happened we must accept it.” Water Flower’s father became very fond of the little water jar, and when it began to move and grow, he became happy. The water jar grew very fast and in a few days it was able to talk and roll itself around following him inside the house. One day, the little water jar asked the Grandfather to take it outside so that it could play with the other children. The grandfather was surprised at the little water jar’s request, but he took it out and soon the little jar was rolling around to the delight of the children in the village. The children became very fond of the little water jar and would wait each day for the grandfather to bring it out to play. The children named the little jar, Water Jar Boy.

One day, the young men of the village were gathering to go rabbit hunting. Water Jar Boy announced, “Grandfather, I want to go rabbit hunting with the rest of the boys, please take me to where the rabbits are so I can hunt too.” The Grandfather was shocked at the request and told Water Jar Boy, “How can you hunt, you have no arms, or legs, besides hunting is for real boys”! Water Jar Boy replied, “But Grandfather, I am a real boy!” Grandfather decided to take Water Jar Boy to where the rabbits were and as they were leaving, Water Flower began to cry fearing that Water Jar Boy would be hurt. Water Jar Boy told his mother not to worry, he would return with “many rabbits”!

Grandfather placed Water Jar Boy near a Mesa where he knew many rabbits lived and told Water Jar Boy that he would return to pick him up before sunset. Grandfather then joined the other older men as they set out to gather the rabbits together. Water Jar Boy began to roll around as he saw rabbits pass by. As he was rolling, he hit a large stone and broke. Out of the broken jar jumped a very handsome boy dressed in a rabbit-skin kilt. The boy picked up a stick and ran after the rabbits killing some of them and letting others go. As the sun began to set, he walked toward the Mesa carrying many rabbits on his back to meet his Grandfather. As he approached, his Grandfather did not recognize him. His Grandfather asked, “Have you seen a water jar rolling around?” Water Jar Boy laughed and said, “Grandfather, it is me Water Jar Boy, your grandson!” Grandfather looked in disbelief as Water Jar Boy told how when he was rolling around he hit a stone, broke his skin, and came out of the jar. “I told you I was a real boy!”

When they came home, Grandfather announced to Water Flower and the Grandmother, “This is my grandson, this is Water Jar Boy!” Then they told the story of how Water Jar Boy had jumped out of the broken water jar and how he had killed many rabbits. Everyone was happy and they invited all their relatives for a special feast to meet the new Water Jar Boy. From then on, Water Jar Boy stayed with the young men and participated in the life of the community.

As time went on, Water Jar Boy became curious about who his Father was. One day he asked his mother, “Who is my Father, where does he live?” She began crying and said that she did not know and she could not tell him where he could go to find him. However, somehow, Water Jar Boy knew the answer to his own question. He announced to his mother, “I know where my Father is and tomorrow I will go and find him!” The next day he set out toward the West and walked for a long time. He saw a marsh and knew that there was a spring there. As he neared the spring, he saw a man dressed in buckskin sitting on a stone near a large spring. The man asked, where are you going? Water Jar Boy replied, “I am going inside that spring there to find my Father.” “Who is your Father?” asked the man. Water Jar Boy paused and looked at the man closely and then said, “I think that it is you that is my Father.” To which the man replied, “Yes, I am your Father and I am happy that you have finally come to see me. I came from the inside of that spring. That is my home. My name is Mountain Spring.” Mountain Spring took Water Jar Boy inside the spring and there Water Jar Boy met all his relatives.

Water Jar Boy stayed in the spring one day and was very happy. Then, he said goodbye and returned home to tell his mother Water Flower the news. Water Jar Boy lived in the village for a while until Water Flower became ill and died. Water Jar Boy was very sad and decided to go see his father again. He entered the spring and to his surprise he was greeted by both his mother Water Flower and his father Mountain Spring. Water Jar Boy stayed in the spring and he lives there to this day.

The myth of Water Jar Boy is a classic story of “asking.” Water Jar Boy is persistent in asking for knowledge and understanding of a missing dimension of his life. He asks, “Who is my father?” and “Where is my father?” And in his constant and sincere asking, the determination of his search, and in his own understanding of his own “specialness,” Water Jar Boy finds not only his father but his spiritual family inside the spring.

The tale of Water Jar Boy is simple, yet profound, and extraordinarily deep in its metaphoric meanings. Water Jar Boy is created through a traditional Pueblo art form, pottery, which reflects the profound role and magic of the creative process in traditional Tribal art forms. It evokes and relates the power of hunting and the use of hunting as a metaphor for searching, learning, and understanding. It reminds us that all is not always as it may seem and that what may appear as handicaps in children may indeed be a special talent since Water Jar Boy can “roll” as fast as other little boys can run. Water Jar Boy’s belief in his ability to be a successful hunter shows us how “children” transform themselves through the challenges that they face and overcome.

Water Jar Boy’s heroic journey to find his father, the special beings who guide him and his entrance into the spring, where he finds not only his spirit father but his aunts and other relatives, is a reflection of the journey deep into ourselves which is required of deep understanding and true learning. In discovering not only his father but his aunts in the spring, Water Jar Boy reminds us that while true learning is always individual, its ultimate goal is not “the individual writ large” but rather communion with our deeper spiritual self and that of our “relations.” Learning and teaching is always about and for life through community and relationship.

Mythopoetic tribal education: Implications for global childhood education

The tremendous influence of these mythopoetic traditions on the development of global childhood education becomes apparent when one tracks the rich array of oral forms used by traditional societies to their ancient sources. These traditions depended upon the spoken word for communication rather than the visual word which dominates modern education today. Globally, Indigenous Peoples, through their use of various mythopoetic forms of communication, applied strategies and orientations to learning that are important to revive and nourish in today’s global education. Modern people, for the most part, have become “mythically blind” and suffer all the consequences stemming from such a “handicap” because their natural poetic sensibility has been “schooled” out of them.

Thinking and communicating “poetically” through the structures of myth is a natural expression of human learning which has been evolving for the last 40,000 years. Mythopoetic orientations are apparent in most children before they learn how to read. Indeed, children at this “illiterate” stage of their life show amazing metaphoric thinking and storying skills reflecting their natural poetic nature. In modern education’s mad dash to make children (and for that matter Indigenous people) literate, it fails to recognize or honor a powerful dimension of a natural human way of knowing and understanding. The hidden message is “stop being children and stop being Indigenous.” It is ironic that today so many modern people lament the loss of this primal human sensibility and strive in so many ways to recapture it through participation in some “thing” creative, Indigenous, or mythological.

Print, literacy, and the written story are very recent developments in human history—even in the history of Western societies. They, never-the-less, evolved from “illiterate” mythopoetic roots which cannot be denied in spite of the negative connotation that Western “civilized” cultures have promoted with regard to “illiteracy” as a sign of being uneducated, uncivilized, and primitive. The study and honoring of oral traditions and “orality” in children offers essential insights into the nature of natural learning. The human “oral” orientation to education offers techniques as well as windows into the world of Indigenous education. A better understanding of oral-based learning revitalizes old yet highly effective techniques for learning while opening up new dimensions which have been forgotten or have become dormant with the development of the printed word, literacy, and modern education’s focus on making everyone literate. What then was the nature of the mythopoetic tradition and why must it again become an important element of contemporary global childhood education?

Mythic poems were performed, sung, or recited using a particular system of rhythmic structure which in turn required the application of a different set of thinking processes and developed a different kinds of learning capacities than today’s modern schooling. The Aztec tradition of “flower and song” is one Indigenous example of a mythopoetic tradition of education in which teaching, learning, and reflection were founded upon chanted stories, poems, or prayers. The Aztec poet, philosopher/priest, would compose poetic storied chants or teach the “divine songs, the mythic tales and poetic verse which embodied the essential thoughts and content of Nahuatl religion and philosophy.” He would then chant these stories and poems to students who would reflect on or internalize the essential messages which they contained. Later, as they became experienced in this oral system, students would compose poetic chants of their own to present to each other and their “tlamatinime,” their poet-teacher. In essence, the “flower” was the thought, the feeling, the insight, the wisdom, and knowledge that was considered of importance as a teaching. The “song” was the vehicle which transported and transformed the “flower” of knowledge and made it live through the breath of the chanter and in the hearts of the listeners (Portillo, 1963: 140).

Indigenous mythopoetic traditions are one and all essentially educational. Indigenous mythopoetic perspectives were founded upon an awe for the “Great Mystery” (that unknown spirit that permeates and animates everything, everywhere); the development of a strong, wise, and pure heart; an abiding respect for one’s tribe, traditions, and law; and deep sense for the relationships and connections between all things. Tribal myths transferred these basic teachings through enlivened images and metaphors which embodied an expansive view of people in relationship with each other and a multiverse full of potential and possibility. Tribal myths encompassed every “thing” within a context which was spiritual yet irreverent, serious yet humorous, logical yet illogical. The messages conveyed through these stories had the power to heal and bring resolution to conflicts because, at its core, poetry illuminates, transforms, and mirrors the heart and soul of both the individual and the People. The presentation of these messages went beyond just words to include sounds, dance, music, games, gesture, symbol, and dream. In this way, thoughts, teachings, and emotions were amplified. Every word, every act, had meaning and energy. This allowed specific Tribal myth and poetry to become part of a larger context of situation and human expression, thereby making the presentation of myth and poetry a true expression of the “sacred” breath within humans and all living things. How did this “intermedia” characteristic of Indigenous mythopoetic traditions “educate” its participants and what does it have to teach us about the oral nature of human learning (Rothenberg, 1986)?

The mythopoetic realm of teaching and learning is not a relic of the past as might be construed from the designation of the arts and theater in the curricula of so many American schools. Rather, it is an educational necessity for enabling the kind of “new” imagination so desperately needed in today’s sterilized and homogenized approach of modern education. Modern educators must admit to the fact that non-European, traditional cultures around the world exhibit a level of complexity and sophistication of thought which equals and many times surpasses modern perceptions of what it means to educate. Many ingrained modern biases and preconceptions of the “primitive” which have been conveyed and conditioned through the hidden curriculum of modern education must be examined. This is especially true of the mythopoetic traditions of Indigenous America. The negative connotations associated with the word “primitive” must give way to a more enlightened understanding of the complexity and richness of “primal” traditions of myth, poetry, and storytelling.

In contrast to the usual conditioned modern perceptions of “the primitive,” oral traditions and Tribal art forms are as individually oriented as they are collectively determined and contexted. It is a fallacy that traditional cultures and their oral traditions do not change, or that creative self-reflection is not a part of the traditional formula. It is naive to think that orality alone defines Indigenous thinking. Indigenous oral traditions have always been integrated with drawing, arts, and practical education. It is the perpetuation of injustice to think that Indigenous people have not reflected equally as hard about the nature of language, myth, art, culture, aesthetics, ethics, and philosophy as Western scholars. If anything, the mythopoetic traditions of Indigenous people reflect that in reality, there is no such thing as “primitive” in the way in which Western education has traditionally conditioned people to perceive it. The tendency of Western education to divide myth and poetry from music, dance, and relationship to nature, community, spirituality, history, and even politics reflects an illusion of Western thinking.

Indigenous mythopoetic traditions are highly contexted expressions of thought, reflection, and participation. They are connected to the living expressions and continuity of Tribal life, past, present, and future. From this perspective, primitive includes the complex and multifaceted. Among Indigenous people, myth, poem, teaching, and learning were all one movement. There is the creation of a unity within a diversity of expressions which creates an extraordinary field for creative learning and teaching (Rothenberg, 1985).

In all Indigenous mythopoetic traditions, including that of the ancient Greeks during the time of Homer, complex processes of oral structure, image making, and presentation were developed. These processes were indeed very complex in that they used a minimum amount of words to create a maximum amount of meaning, affect, and involvement. These processes in turn engaged the fullest participation of both the giver and receiver in reflecting upon the message of the work. In this sharing of the poetic vision and experience, both giver and receiver become involved in a kind of “dance” of meaning in which complex images, symbols, and meanings are explored in a direct and personal way.

Nothing in contemporary modern educational experience comes close to affecting and engaging individuals as deeply and multi-dimensionally. Through the mobilization of an infinite array of vehicles to convey a message and engender a response, Indigenous mythopoetic traditions represent the most developed and continuously affective forms of education. In every case, mind, body, breath, and spirit of all participants were engaged in reflecting on the message of the story or poem. What is it then to “think mythically”? How did it work in earlier times?

Education in oral cultures is largely a matter of constantly immersing the young in enchanting patterns of sound until their minds resonate to them, until they become in tune with the institutions of their culture (Eggan, 1989: 451):

The techniques of oral poetry [developed in Indigenous societies over countless generations] are designed to discourage critical reflection on the stories and their contents, and instead “enchant” the hearers and draw them into the story. This process of enthralling the audience, of impressing upon them the reality of the story, is a central feature of education in oral cultures. Their social institutions are sustained in large part by sound, by what the spoken or sung word can do to commit individuals to particular beliefs, expectations, roles and behaviors. Thus the techniques of fixing crucial patterns of belief in memory, rhyme, rhythm, formula, story, and so on, are vitally important. (Havelock, 1963 (in Eggan article (1987)), p. 29)

The Homeric poems were called the educators of pre-Classical Greeks because they performed this social function. Poems were not listened to solely because of their aesthetic value; that was incidental to their value as “a massive repository of useful knowledge, a sort of encyclopedia of ethics, politics, history, and technology which the effective citizen was required to learn as the core of his educational equipment.”

Mythopoetic learning among Indigenous people can best be described as an integration of verbal with musical learning which at times is complemented by kinesthetic and spatial learning. Indigenous learning indeed does involve a different orientation to learning than modern education. This different orientation in turn engenders a different way and expression of understanding. It is an orientation that modern education has really never understood or valued. Yet, it engenders a cadre of valuable learning skills and supports other kinds of learning which many students sorely lack.

The mythically instructed community

Culture and mythology are mental constructs whose evolution is based on the development of groups and individuals through the long history of Tribal societies. Within Tribal groups, the evolution of a cultural/social mythology closely parallels the evolution of the personal mythology of individuals. There is a mutualistic/synergistic relationship between the individual and his or her primary group. The individual or group of individuals whose personal mythology most strongly reflects the forces of change impact the group to which they belong as change agents, and it is this dynamic that most directly influences the consciousness that characterizes the formal and informal educative process.

The evolution of human consciousness has generally been marked by transformations of the guiding myths that a given society holds. In a sense, mythic stories trace the journey of a people through different stages of their consciousness as well as through the times and places in which they have lived.

Ken Wilber (1981) in his book Up From Eden describes four basic stages of human consciousness. The first of these stages begins with a pre-mythological state of consciousness in which the human sense of self is essentially identified with the physical needs of the body and the primordial forces of Nature. In this “Eden” stage of consciousness, humans reflected an almost complete communion with Nature, using only simple tools, organized in simple extended-family groups and engaged in a sense of self that was only slightly differentiated from that of their Place (Wilber, 1981).

Wilber describes the second epoch of human consciousness as the true beginning of myth-making. During this stage, consciousness was characterized by a kind of integration between the mythical structuring of reality based on physical needs with the projection of “magical” relationships to entities in the outside world as well.

In the third epoch, language had evolved to a stage where it allowed for the more complete development of the verbal mind. This allowed for verbal symbols to be developed to understand and codify information about the natural world to greater extent. This in turn allowed for accumulation and transmission of knowledge through oral tradition, which in turn set the stage for large communities to evolve, and more complex and sophisticated mythologies to be developed through mythic story and ritual—all of which formed a foundation for what we call today Education. During this third epoch, people’s consciousness was primarily identified with the cultural myths of their group. People’s consciousness was primarily engendered through group identification (Wilber, 1981).

As the fourth epoch began to unfold, an individualistic mindset gradually came into its own as the development of the capacity for self-observation and reflection evolved. This development seems to occur at an especially accelerated rate in Western cultures. With the development and associated repercussions of Western science and the “Individualist” ideologies, the uniquely personal mythology of self-determining individuals began to characterize social, economic, political, religious, and philosophical consciousness (Wilber, 1981).

The “individual ego writ large” in its enthronement of individualism became the ordering paradigm of the society and mythology of Western Society. It affected everything, and Western science and technology became both the tools and the icons of the Western individualist. In essence, the Hero myth became the ordering paradigm of consciousness in the West (Wilber, 1981).

Today, a new paradigm and new era of myth is beginning to unfold. Such a new paradigm is reflecting a new stage of human consciousness as it wrestles with an evolving global community, the unfolding environmental crises, and “progressive democratization.” The new paradigm and emerging myths are reflecting a mutualism and interconnection of all aspects of the earth. These new myths, by necessity of human survival, must be Earth-centered mythologies. And the concomitant education must reflect the teaching/learning process and content appropriate for such new myth-making:

The cost of having placed the individualism of the heroic journey above the values of caring and connectedness continue to mount. A new vision of democracy is urgently needed that can support the individual and at the same time promote a greater sense of community and more harmonious international relationship. (Feinstein and Krippner, 1988: 219)

Indigenous education and its expression in various cultures around the world reflect all of the mythic stages of human consciousness. They form frames of reference for perceiving the whole of the evolution of human consciousness. In studying Indigenous education, every modern cultural group may explore the “reality” of the mythic-thinking process through its manifestations in various phases of their histories. This introduces a kind of “mythological literacy” to the domain of modern education which for the most part is devoid of such explorations except in the highly specialized domain of the mythologist.

The American Indian experience of modern American education presents a case in point. The re-vitalization of the concept of a mythically instructed community presents a “missing” dimension of contemporary American education which is desperately needed by both American Indian and American communities as they wrestle with the forces of change and deculturalization in an American society which is still very much guided by a mythology of the “Ego Writ Large” (ego gratification and individualism). For American Indians, the frames of reference from historic/traditional American Indian cultures for reconstituting this missing dimension are extensive. The key is to re-vitalize, in our individual, familial, and communal actions and consciousness, the importance of living with and through the core values of relationship, responsibility, respect, and interdependence with all life. These are the messages of our collective Tribal worldviews and the essential teaching of a mythically instructed community. These messages are first communicated in the stories children are told and then are built upon through their lives, in family and community. However, American Indian people themselves must take the responsibility of leading their own people and stimulating the consciousness of their counterparts in American society, toward such basic realizations.

Beyond addressing the acute educational needs of American Indian communities, mainstream American educators must realize that they too urgently need to integrate and interconnect in a mutualistic way with the educational perspectives of other cultures. In this respect, Indigenous education and its inherent emphasis on the mythological perspective have much to offer to the “evolution” of modern American education. The insights presented by American Indian mythology, as a body of content and a process of thought and psychological exploration, have always presented a significant and readily accessible foundation for developing an Indigenously inspired education process. The evolution of a contemporary Indigenous philosophy of education also offers an authentic tool for countering deculturalization and alienation by offering a way to resynthesize foundational Indigenous myths into a contemporary context of meaning.

Each person evolves his or her own “personal mythology” and perceives and acts through the lens of that myth of self-creation. It naturally follows that in the process of learning and education, one’s personal myth intertwines with a group myth which has been elaborated by that group for the purpose of education toward the ends deemed valuable for the preservation of that group’s “way of life.” If a person’s personal myth is wholesome and able to integrate well with the group’s myth (as espoused through its educative process), then there is relatively easy “resonance” with that group’s world view. Education and the learning that results are compatible with the norms and expectation of that group and there is little dissonance. On the other hand, if a person’s personal myth has another cultural frame of reference or is significantly different than the “educational myth” of the group doing the “schooling,” the potential for conflict and resistance is great.

Alienation is the result of such a dilemma and a search for alternatives becomes a natural activity. Mirrored included in such alienation are dysfunctional personal/mythic perspectives. This is exactly the dilemma of many modern people, both young and old. The creative solution is to construct an educational process which again resonates with a functional cultural/mythic perspective that is healthy and fits contemporary life.

Finally, connecting this perspective to the larger view of global childhood education, the unique differences of people globally lie in the way each Tribal/cultural/social group has expressed this shared cultural mythological paradigm of education as a result of the circumstance of adaptation to a geographical environment, the evolution of their world view, and their Tribal group’s unique history. However, while a Tribe is unique in terms of language, adaptation experience, and expression of cultural traits, all Tribal groups employ similar conceptual/symbolic frameworks constructed around mythical life symbols, which represent the “seeds” from which cultural and mythic knowledge and process may grow and bear new fruits. It is possible to evolve learning and teaching models which build on shared ideas while honoring unique differences. This is especially true with regard to the myths a particular Tribe has preserved through its oral tradition. Indigenous teaching is essentially rooted in the structure and process of storying. Globally and historically, story and storytelling has been a primary Teaching Way of childhood education for connecting each generation of people to each other. Story is the way that we remember to remember who we are and where we have come from and of where we may go as we engage the potentials and challenges of a 21st century world.