History of American Literature:Early American and Colonial Period to 1776

American literature begins with the orally transmitted
myths, legends, tales, and lyrics (always songs) of Indian cultures.
There was no written literature among the more than 500 different Indian
languages and tribal cultures that existed in North America before the
first Europeans arrived. As a result, Native American oral literature is
quite diverse. Narratives from quasi-nomadic hunting cultures like the
Navajo are different from stories of settled agricultural tribes such as
the pueblo-dwelling Acoma; the stories of northern lakeside dwellers
such as the Ojibwa often differ radically from stories of desert tribes
like the Hopi.
Tribes maintained their own religions -- worshipping
gods, animals, plants, or sacred persons. Systems of government ranged
from democracies to councils of elders to theocracies. These tribal
variations enter into the oral literature as well.
Still, it is
possible to make a few generalizations. Indian stories, for example,
glow with reverence for nature as a spiritual as well as physical
mother. Nature is alive and endowed with spiritual forces; main
characters may be animals or plants, often totems associated with a
tribe, group, or individual. The closest to the Indian sense of holiness
in later American literature is Ralph Waldo Emerson's transcendental
"Over-Soul," which pervades all of life.
The Mexican tribes revered
the divine Quetzalcoatl, a god of the Toltecs and Aztecs, and some tales
of a high god or culture were told elsewhere. However, there are no
long, standardized religious cycles about one supreme divinity. The
closest equivalents to Old World spiritual narratives are often accounts
of shamans initiations and voyages. Apart from these, there are stories
about culture heroes such as the Ojibwa tribe's Manabozho or the Navajo
tribe's Coyote. These tricksters are treated with varying degrees of
respect. In one tale they may act like heroes, while in another they may
seem selfish or foolish. Although past authorities, such as the Swiss
psychologist Carl Jung, have deprecated trickster tales as expressing
the inferior, amoral side of the psyche, contemporary scholars -- some
of them Native Americans -- point out that Odysseus and Prometheus, the
revered Greek heroes, are essentially tricksters as well.
Examples of almost every oral genre can be found in American Indian literature :
lyrics, chants, myths, fairy tales, humorous anecdotes, incantations,
riddles, proverbs, epics, and legendary histories. Accounts of
migrations and ancestors abound, as do vision or healing songs and
tricksters' tales. Certain creation stories are particularly popular. In
one well-known creation story, told with variations among many tribes, a
turtle holds up the world. In a Cheyenne version, the creator, Maheo,
has four chances to fashion the world from a watery universe. He sends
four water birds diving to try to bring up earth from the bottom. The
snow goose, loon, and mallard soar high into the sky and sweep down in a
dive, but cannot reach bottom; but the little coot, who cannot fly,
succeeds in bringing up some mud in his bill. Only one creature, humble
Grandmother Turtle, is the right shape to support the mud world Maheo
shapes on her shell -- hence the Indian name for America, "Turtle
Island."
The songs or poetry, like the narratives, range from the
sacred to the light and humorous: There are lullabies, war chants, love
songs, and special songs for children's games, gambling, various chores,
magic, or dance ceremonials. Generally the songs are repetitive. Short
poem-songs given in dreams sometimes have the clear imagery and subtle
mood associated with Japanese haiku or Eastern-influenced imagistic
poetry. A Chippewa song runs:
A loon I thought it was
But it was
My love's
splashing oar.
Vision
songs, often very short, are another distinctive form. Appearing in
dreams or visions, sometimes with no warning, they may be healing,
hunting, or love songs. Often they are personal, as in this Modoc song:
I
the song
I walk here.
Indian
oral tradition and its relation to American literature as a whole is
one of the richest and least explored topics in American studies. The
Indian contribution to America is greater than is often believed. The
hundreds of Indian words in everyday American English include "canoe,"
"tobacco," "potato," "moccasin," "moose," "persimmon," "raccoon,"
"tomahawk," and "totem." Contemporary Native American writing, , also
contains works of great beauT