Module 31: Narrative in the Archaeology of Native North America: Native Voice II: Synthetic Narratives

In-class exercise: deriving archaeological hypotheses from oral histories.

[In class, pass out to each student a short native narrative. For my class, I used 4-5 page segments of “The Winnebago Trickster Cycle” in Paul Radin’s The Trickster: A Study in American Indian Mythology, 1956.]

Staeck advises that archaeologists not become involved in testing the truth or falsity of the acts of supernatural beings recounted in oral history. He suggests that archaeologists focus instead on the social milieu against which the narrative events are described. I want each of you to read the narratives I have handed out and formulate one or more problems or hypotheses about native life that could be explored further through archaeological research.