Leslie Marmon Silko, Ceremony (1977)

Benjamin West, The Treaty of Penn with the Indians (1771-2)

Storytelling

• Centrality of stories to Native culture• Oral tradition: adaptation and

inheritance• Fragments of larger story

not Western tradition of self-contained narratives• Interrelationship of people, land, and

history

2013 study of alcohol abuse in USA. Today, 13% of deaths among Native Americans are alcohol related.

Quotes from Ceremony

“medicine for tight bellies and choked-up throats” (p37) “They blamed liquor and they blamed the war”(p49)

“Reports note that since the Second World War a pattern of drinking and violence, not previously seen before, is emerging among Indian veterans” (p49)________________________

Emily Vincent