What I believe "Storyteller" is about can be found at the beginning of
"Ceremony." On page 2, Silko writes "I will tell you something about stories,
[he said] they aren't just entertainment. Don't be fooled. They are all we
have, you see, all we have to fight off illness and death. You don't have
anything if you don't have the stories. Their evil is mighty but it can't
stand up to our stories. So they try to destroy the stories, let the stories
be confused or forgotten. They would like that. They would be happy, because
we would be defenseless then. He rubbed his belly. I keep them here [he
said]. Here, put your hand on it. See, it is moving. There is life here for
the people. And in the belly of this story the rituals and the ceremony are
still growing." I could restate this passage, but I think it speaks for
itself. In their stories, Silko's people keep alive their history,
traditions, and identity. It is the roots of who they are, and it will keep
their culture alive through these years of adverse times.
I feel this class has been an excellent experience. This class coincided with
and greatly added to another class I was taking this semester called Cultural
Anthropology. In that class, we spent a great deal of time learning how to
examine and understand cultures other than our own from a non-ethnocentric
approach. We also spent much time discussing the culture and beliefs of
various Native American peoples as well as reading "Pumpkin Seed Point" by
Frank Waters. All of this combined to greatly enhance for me what we were
reading and learning from Leslie Marmon Silko. Frankly, I went from being
fairly ignorant about native culture, to now having a profoundly changed
attitude and, I hope, a more accurate understanding of these people. Through
this process, I feel I have gained an entirely new perspective on my own
cultural roots as well as some of the many other different and diverse
cultures of the world. I feel that there is such a great deal that can be
learned from these other cultures, especially Native American ones. These
people have retained a vast body of knowledge that is of great potential to
all humanity. Indigenous people provide us with alternative cultural models
that can serve to reduce our anxieties about the likely eventual decline in
our material western living standards. These cultures show us that we can
live meaningful and satisfying lives in the future without the technologies
and materialism that we now consider so essential and vital to our existence.
I enjoyed the use of an internet discussion group for this class. It was an
interesting and efficient way of sharing ideas and perspectives. I further
appreciated the use of an all-electronic means of preparing, presenting, and
sharing of the written assignments for this class; we seem to use and waste
far more paper at this school than we really need to.
For me, this class has exemplified what I think higher education should be
about; I have learned new things, a new way of seeing things, and have
effectively broadened my mind.
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