Teacher Background:

What We Can Learn from Creation Stories

    Origin or creation stories provide keys to understanding of American Indian views of land in the past and the present. Stories engage, inspire, and motivate listeners and readers in ways that technical instructions or scientific explanation cannot. An American Indian origin story is not only a sacred text that teaches about Creator and the Creation, it is also a guiding text in the sense that the founding documents of the United States such as the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution are guiding texts. Origin stories show people how to put values and principles into action.

    These stories are much more than simple fables or fairy tales. The uncomplicated sentence structure of many California Native American stories build narratives that are often intentionally left open, stories that allude to other stories in the tribe’s repertoire and that reward repeated readings and tellings. If students read or hear stories numerous times, they may begin to acquire the knowledge that Indigenous cultures have passed on for centuries.  Repetition helps readers and listeners to deeply learn the stories’ lessons.  Remembered and even partially understood, the story becomes knowledge belonging to the student. (For an elaboration of these ideas, see Dawn Maracle’s discussion of her Iroquois Creation Story Lesson Plan, posted at  Debra Morningstar's website).

     As spiritual and ethical guides, California Indian origin stories are worthy of great respect in the classroom. The stories generally reflect animistic beliefs in that they are “peopled” by animals, plants, and sometimes by bodies of water, rocks, or other objects that possess wills, souls, and spirit. Moreover, the stories sometimes associate specific animals with land or water and with clans or “sides” of the tribe, and individual tribal members may come to know and tell stories of particular animals as their helpers with great spiritual power. Animal characters fill the stories of Native California, often to the exclusion of human characters. The stories can be read as allegories -- as examples of behavior to emulate or to avoid -- but the pervasiveness of animals in the stories goes beyond allegory and figures of speech. These stories can directly indicate the relationships that Indian peoples can have with animals as full members of their physical and spiritual communities.

     The narratives also often employ place names or directional terms to establish a specific sense of place. They guide the actions of tribal members and their leaders today as they build a positive future for their people and their homelands.  Lessons of Our California Land, the Indian Land Tenure Foundation's K-12 curriculum available at www.landlessons.org, includes detailed suggestions for teaching about creation stories in today's diverse classrooms.