The Native American Oral Tradition: Voices of the Spirit and Soul - Hardcover

Einhorn, Lois J.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 027595790X ISBN 13: 9780275957902

Publisher: Praeger, 2000

Synopsis

Einhorn, a rhetorical scholar, explores the rich history of the Native American oral tradition, focusing on stories, orations, prayers, and songs. Because American Indians existed without written language for many generations, their culture was strongly dependent on an oral tradition for continuity and preservation. Not surprisingly, they spent many hours perfecting the art of oral communication and learning methods for committing their messages to memory. Einhorn thoroughly examines the important aspects of this unique oral tradition from a rhetorical perspective, covering individual speakers, nations, and time periods.

In the first half of the book, the author examines how the Native American oral tradition has affected their cultural assumptions, principles, values, beliefs, and experiences. These chapters focus primarily on characteristics of the Native American oral tradition that transcend individual nations. The second half of the book includes translated transcripts of representative speeches, stories, prayers, and songs. In accessible and compelling prose, Einhorn discusses the sanctity of the spoken word to Native Americans, concluding that their oral tradition helps to account for the survival of their people and their culture.

About this title

Book Description:

Analyzes the Native American oral tradition from a rhetorical perspective, focusing on the process of adjusting ideas to people, and people to ideas, and linking the oral tradition to the cultural assumptions, principles, values, and beliefs of Native Americans, as reflected in their speeches, stories, prayers, and songs.

About the Author:

LOIS J. EINHORN is Associate Professor of Rhetoric at Binghamton University. She is author of Abraham Lincoln the Orator: Penetrating the Lincoln Legend (Greenwood, 1992), Helen Keller, Public Speaker: Sightless but Seen, Deaf but Heard (Greenwood, 1998), and many articles and book chapters. She has won several major awards for outstanding teaching.

About this edition

• Publisher: Praeger
• Publication date: 2000
• ISBN 10: 027595790X
• ISBN 13: 9780275957902
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 192