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Weaving Webs: Native American Literature, Oral Tradition, Internet

by: Christopher Schedler
 
[from the Issues page:] The oral tradition was and continues to be a defining element of Native American cultures. Native American tribes were, according to linguistic definitions, primary oral cultures (cultures dependent upon acoustic modes of communication). The imposition and development of chirographic (i.e., writing) cultures has necessarily had a profound impact on the continuance of oral traditions: sometimes disastrous, as evident in governmental and educational attempts to eliminate native languages, and at other times (perhaps) beneficial, as evident in attempts to preserve native languages and to continue oral traditions through writing. Native American literature often draws on oral traditions for both its content and form. The electronic age has been characterized as introducing a culture of secondary orality, allowing for spontaneous oral communication across great distances.

• In what capacity might textual and electronic modes of communication productively incorporate aspects of the oral tradition?
  
• What is lost when oral traditions are transcribed in these modes?
  
• Could the web reintroduce us to the structures of thought and expression characterisitic of primary orality?

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