ANT 426
Native North American Folklore
Syllabus:
ANT 426 Fall 2008
Web based course, 3 credits
Pauleena MacDougall, Instructor
Office hours by appointment
E-mail: pauleena.macdougall@maine.edu
Course Objectives: Students will learn to compare and contrast ideas, to communicate effectively orally and in written assignments, and students will learn to prepare an organized presentation. Students will learn the anthropological approach to collection and analysis of Native American folklore, types and genres with a special emphasis on the Native people of the Northeast region. We will begin by looking at current folkloric theory as it applies to Native American folklore. We will then look more in depth at the folklore of the northeast region, with a focus on Maine Native peoples.
Texts:
- Larry Evers and Barre Toelken, Native American Oral Traditions. (Utah State University Press, 2001). NAOT
- Molly Spotted Elk, Katahdin Wigwam’s Tales of the Abnaki Tribes Northeast Folklore volume XXXVII: 2003.KWTA This book is available at the Maine Folklife Center in South Stevens Hall.
- Claire R. Farrer Thunder Rides a Black Horse 2nd ed. Waveland Press, 1996 TRBH
- Louis Bird, Telling Our Stories Broadview Press, 2005 TOS
- Annette Kolodny, The Life and Traditions of the Red Man by Joseph Nicolar Duke University Press, 2007 LAT
Grade: 2 research papers (10-15 pp) and 1 online presentation each 1/4
Presentation due: by week 12
Final Paper due week 15
Class discussion (1/4)
Homework and Class discussions: there is a discussion folder. Every week you will be given questions for discussion. I expect you to answer these questions and also respond to the other students’ answers in the discussion folder.
Research papers:
CLASS PROJECT will be a presentation based on the folklore of a Maine-Maritimes tribe: Micmac, Maliseet, Passamaquoddy, Penobscot, or Abenaki. You are encouraged to do primary research, including oral interviews if appropriate, take advantage of the materials in the Northeast Archives of Folklore and Oral History and the Special Collections section of the University Libraries, search the bibliography provided, the Human Relations Area Files (in Reference), or the World Wide Web (with caution). In addition, you may wish to visit the Wabanaki Center on campus, the Hudson Museum on campus, the Wabanaki Museum at Pleasant Point and the Penobscot Nation Museum on Indian Island. This project is due finals week.
Research topics must be pre-approved by the instructor.
Check your syllabus for dates to turn in topic, bibliography, draft, and final paper.
Week 1. (9/2-9/8) Definitions and history of the discipline
Homework: Post a sample of folklore from your family to the homework folder. Read other student’s postings.
Discussion: Write a couple of paragraphs that tells the rest of the class who you are and why you are taking this class.
Week 2. (9/9-9/15) Definitions: Mythology
Read: Thunder Rides a Black Horse Chapters 1 & 2
Homework: Answer the following question.
What is a month? Do some research and find several different ways that people divide up the year. What is the relationship between lived experience and the mythic present in a concept like month? Have you ever had any lived experience regarding months?
Video: Southeast
Week 3. (9/16-9/22) Trickster
Readings and discussion: Read TRBH chapters 5 and 6. Answer the following question: Farrer explains that an Apache girl becomes a physiological woman when she has her first menses. This experience is celebrated with the girls’ puberty ceremony that helps the girl become a social woman. What marks the transition from childhood to becoming a woman in your culture? Compare this to the puberty ceremony held for Apache girls. For women reading this, what do you remember of your first menstruation. For men, what do you know and think about women’s menstruation? Think about American cultural attitudes toward this transition in a woman’s life. How does this reflect the position of women in each culture?
Video: Southwest
Week 4. (9/23-9/30) Artistry in Native American Narratives
Structuralism
Franz Boas’ Indian Mythologies
Read: “Collaborative Sociological Research among the Ohono O’odham”
Discussion: Answer the following question: Compare the reaction to fieldwork problems that Ofelia and Jane talk about (pp140-148). Why do they experience different problems and how do they solve them? How much cultural knowledge is required?
Homework: After reading this article, how would you go about designing a fieldwork project involving people in your own or another culture? Find out what the requirements are for conducting research in Native culture in Indian communities. (You may choose a community you are interested in, or choose one from the Maine-Maritimes group).
Be ready to discuss a possible topic for your class project.
Video: Northwest Coast
Week 5. 10/1-10/6) Beyond Literary Value
Creation myths
Dell Hymes, ethnopoetics and Cultee’s Salmon myth
Read Salmon myth in Readings folder. Read Molina & Evers “Like This It Stays in Your Hands”
*Send bibliography for your project to the instructor for approval.
Discussion: Answer the following question: How would you assess the success of the collaboration in translation of the talk of the deer singer in this article? What problems did you have in understanding the speech of the deer singer, even when translated into English? How can an anthropologist deal with this issue?
Video: Plains I
Week 6. (10/7-10/13) Native American Folklore
Readings: Read: Louis Bird, “Telling Our Stories” pps 33-81.
Answer the following question: What values and beliefs are revealed in the Cree stories told by Louis Bird?
Video: Plains II
Week 7. (10/14-10/20) Pictographs and culture areas
Read Chapters 7 & 8 in “Telling Our Stories” and answer the following questions: How did Cree people adjust to changing technologies and religion after Europeans came? What aspects of their culture were they able to continue within the new mixed culture?
Video: Northeast
Week 8. (10/21-10/27) Native American Folklore
Powwows: View the 2 videos about Ojibwe Powwows, and answer the questions posted in this week’s folder for discussion.
EXAM 1
Week 9. (10/28-11/3) Native American Folklore
Culture areas and creation stories
Read “The Life and Traditions of the Red Man” (Nicolar) in your readings folder on First Class
Discussion: Answer the following question: How does the Gluskabe tradition of the origin of man differ from that of western religious traditions? What can you glean about Penobscot culture from the writing of Joseph Nicolar? Are these aboriginal or 19th century concepts? Why or why not
Week 10. (11/4-11/10)Folklore in Maine (and Eastern Canada)
Homework: read: KWTA: Read Wahlemahtusgil answer the following question. Why is sweet grass significant enough to have an origin story? What is the purpose of an origin story?
Week 11. (11/11-11/17) Folklore in Maine (and Eastern Canada)
Penobscot tales and petroglyphs.
Homework: Read: KWTA: Wuchosen and Kisus. Describe the two main characters. Why are they important? What do you think the function of the story is?
Week 12. (11/18-11/24) Folklore in Maine (and Eastern Canada)
The Supernatural World of Gluskabe and other beings
Read: KWTA: The adventures of Mategwes and answer the following questions : What do you understand Mategwes’ character to be? Is he a trickster? What kind of a role does he play in Penobscot culture?
*Mail Student Presentations to Instructor
Week 13. (11/25-12/1) Folklore in Maine (and Eastern Canada)
Micmac, Maliseet, Passamaquoddy and Penobscot traditions
Ethnopoetics: practical structuralism, Kabasseh, The Sturgeon, A Penobscot tale
Student presentations
Read KWTA: How Gluskabe made the first man. Is this story the same as the one in Nicolar? Why do you think that is so?
Week 14. (12/2-12/8) Folklore in Maine (and Eastern Canada)
Read KWTA: Plump-Plump. Where have we seen this character before? What is different about this story? What did you learn about traditional gender roles from this article?
Student presentations
Week 15. (12/9-12/15)
View other student presentations. Tell us what you think–what you learned from other student’s experiences.
Final Research Paper #2 is Due