Native American Oral Traditions and New Spain
Native Voices. View the film from Learner.org and answer the questions below.
Note: If you are not in class to view this, you should view it on the Web. http://www.learner.org/amerpass/unit01/index.html and click the Using the video icon in the middle of the page:
1. What elements do writers Leslie Marmon Silko, Simon Ortiz, and Lucy Tapahonso combine in their works?
2. What was the origin of life according to Native American oral tradition?
3. What besides words in involved in oral tradition?
4. Do other world cultures have oral traditions?
5. What is in danger of happening to Native American traditions? Why?
6. How has cultural contact affected oral traditions?
7. What sorts of topics are contemporary Native American writers taking up and dealing with in their works now?

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Cultural Values as Reflected in Origin Stories

Read the Introduction to the Colonial Period to 1700 on pp. 1-11 of the Heath Anthology

Read the Introduction to Native American Oral Literatures on p. 12-16 of the Heath Anthology

Read the handout containing “The Earth on Turtle’s Back” and Genesis 1-3 as well as any other
Creation Stories you are given.
1.
What is an origin story? What purpose do origin stories serve to the cultures from which they come?
2.
What can studying the Native American and the European American origin stories illuminate for us?
3.
After completing the readings listed above, do the following exercise on the Cultural Values of Native and European Americans. Directions: Read each of the statements below, keeping in mind the creation stories you have read and other information you have been given regarding Native Americans and
European colonists. Write E beside each of those values associated more with European Americans and
N beside each of those values associated more with Native Americans. Note after each statement specific references to the readings that support your choice . (If using Genesis to support your choice, summarize the part of Genesis that leads you to think so—don’t just put chapter and verse.)
_____There exists a spirit of cooperation between Humans and Nature.
_____There exists a hierarchy of God over Man and Man over Woman.
_____Woman is part of Man.
_____Man is master over Woman.
_____Humans have a kinship with Animals and Nature in general.
_____Women’s roles and functions are as important as those of Men.
_____Man owns Nature.

_____Humans should dominate the World.
_____Man must obey God or be punished.
_____Man was created separately from Nature.
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_____Man’s existence is dependent upon working with other Animals.
_____Man must work constantly to obey God’s commands.
_____ Knowledge and Leisure are essential elements of human life.
_____Some knowledge may be Evil.
View the “American Passages: Exploring Borderlands” film Learner.org and answer the questions below and on the next page.
Note: If you are not in class to view this, you should view it on the Web. http://www.learner.org/amerpass/unit02/index.html and click the Using the video icon in the middle of the page:
1.
What are modern writers challenging in their works dealing with Southwestern
Border?

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2.
What is Aztlan?
3.
What does Mestizo mean?
4.
What did del Castillo write about?
5.
Who was Doña Marina?
6.
Who was Cabeza de Vaca and what was unique about his situation and why can he be termed a “cultural Mestizo” and “the first Chicano”?
7.
What did de Vaca criticize about European Christians?
8.
What are “border ballads”?
9.
How did women’s roles in Chicano culture evolve?
10.
How did the image of Doña Marina in change in Chicano literature?

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New Spain
Read pages 46 – 47 of The Heath Anthology and answer the questions below.
1. Where did wealth in the Spanish colonies come from? What was the system of encomienda?
2. What was the goal of religion and missionary activities in the Spanish colonies?
3. Did the native people actually convert to Christianity?
4. What happened to the culture of new Spain as a result of interactions and intermarriages among the
Spanish, Indians, Africans?
5. What had the Spanish founded in Mexico City more than a half a century before the English even established colonies in the world?
6. Which Spanish explorer became virtually unrecognizable to the other Spaniards?