The Intersection of Karuk Storytelling and Education
The Intersection of Karuk Storytelling and Education
The Intersection of Karuk Storytelling and Education
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happy, but those who did not believe in it would stay in the ground <strong>and</strong> be damned<br />
forever with the whites.” (702) This strong religious element has remained – in 1993,<br />
Bruce King told the Myth <strong>of</strong> the Indian Renaissance in his play Evening at the<br />
Warbonnet. In it, four characters must lay down their burdens, all connected to<br />
colonization, before they can cross the River that lies between here <strong>and</strong> the l<strong>and</strong> <strong>of</strong> the<br />
dead. To do so, they must work with two spirits, Coyote <strong>and</strong> Loon. This myth is at the<br />
heart <strong>of</strong> the current revivalist movement in Native America. We are currently bad <strong>of</strong>f,<br />
with broken families, drug <strong>and</strong> alcohol dependency, rampant unemployment <strong>and</strong> violence<br />
(so the story goes) because <strong>of</strong> the ongoing process <strong>of</strong> colonization. <strong>The</strong> only way we can<br />
defend ourselves <strong>and</strong> fix our world is to hold onto our ancestral traditions that have<br />
survived, <strong>and</strong> revive those that have become dormant.<br />
Fig. 1. A map <strong>of</strong> Káruk country.<br />
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