Editing Storytelling (section)

==== Passing on values ====
Stories in indigenous cultures encompass a variety of [[Moral development|values]]. These values include an emphasis on individual responsibility, concern for the environment and communal welfare.<ref>Hodge, et al. 2002. Utilizing Traditional Storytelling to Promote Wellness in American Indian Communities.</ref>

Stories are based on values passed down by older generations to shape the foundation of the community.<ref>Jeff Corntassel, Chaw-win-is, and T'lakwadzi. "Indigenous Storytelling, Truth-telling and Community Approaches to Reconciliation." ESC: English Studies in Canada 35.1 (2009): 137–59)</ref> Storytelling is used as a bridge for knowledge and understanding allowing the values of "self" and "community" to connect and be learned as a whole. Storytelling in the [[Navajo]] community for example allows for community values to be learned at different times and places for different learners. Stories are told from the perspective of other people, animals, or the natural elements of the earth.<ref>{{Cite book|title = Life Lessons through Storytelling: Children's Exploration of Ethics|last = Eder|first = Donna|publisher = Indiana University Press|year = 2010|isbn = 978-0-253-22244-2|pages = 7–23}}</ref> In this way, children learn to value their place in the world as a person in relation to others. Typically, stories are used as an [[informal learning]] tool in Indigenous American communities, and can act as an alternative method for reprimanding children's bad behavior. In this way, stories are non-confrontational, which allows the child to discover for themselves what they did wrong and what they can do to adjust the behavior.<ref>Battiste, Marie. Indigenous Knowledge and Pedagogy in First Nations Education: A Literature Review with Recommendations. Ottawa, Ont.: Indian and Northern Affairs, 2002.</ref>

Parents in the [[Arizona Tewa]] community, for example, teach morals to their children through traditional narratives.<ref>{{cite journal|last=Kroskrity|first=P. V.|title=Narrative reproductions: Ideologies of storytelling, authoritative words and generic regimentation in the village of Tewa.|journal=Journal of Linguistic Anthropology|date=2009|volume=19|pages=40–56|doi=10.1111/j.1548-1395.2009.01018.x|doi-access=free}}</ref> Lessons focus on several topics including historical or "sacred" stories or more domestic disputes. Through storytelling, the Tewa community emphasizes the traditional wisdom of the ancestors and the importance of collective as well as individual identities. Indigenous communities teach children valuable skills and morals through the actions of good or mischievous stock characters while also allowing room for children to make meaning for themselves. By not being given every element of the story, children rely on their own experiences and not formal teaching from adults to fill in the gaps.<ref>{{cite journal|last=Pelletier|first=Wilfred|title=Childhood in an Indian Village|journal=Two Articles|date=1969}}</ref>

When children listen to stories, they periodically vocalize their ongoing [[attention]] and accept the extended turn of the storyteller. The emphasis on attentiveness to surrounding events and the importance of oral tradition in indigenous communities teaches children the skill of keen attention. For example, Children of the [[Tohono O'odham]] American Indian community who engaged in more cultural practices were able to recall the events in a verbally presented story better than those who did not engage in cultural practices.<ref>{{cite journal|last=Tsethlikai|first=M.|author2=Rogoff |title=Involvement in traditional cultural practices and American Indian children's incidental recall of a folktale.|journal=Developmental Psychology|date=2013|volume=49|issue=3|pages=568–578|doi=10.1037/a0031308|pmid=23316771}}</ref> Body movements and gestures help to communicate values and keep stories alive for future generations.<ref>Fisher, Mary Pat. Living Religions: An Encyclopedia of the World's Faiths. London: I.B. Tauris, 1997</ref> Elders, parents and grandparents are typically involved in teaching the children the cultural ways, along with history, community values and teachings of the land.<ref>Hornberger, Nancy H. Indigenous Literacies in the Americas: Language Planning from the Bottom up. Berlin: Mouton De Gruyter, 1997</ref>

Children in indigenous communities can also learn from the underlying message of a story. For example, in a [[Nahua peoples|nahuatl]] community near [[Mexico City]], stories about ahuaques or hostile water dwelling spirits that guard over the bodies of water, contain morals about respecting the environment. If the protagonist of a story, who has accidentally broken something that belongs to the ahuaque, does not replace it or give back in some way to the ahuaque, the [[protagonist]] dies.<ref>{{Cite journal|url = http://www.redalyc.org/articulo.oa?id=55703708|title = Infancia nahua y transmisión de la cosmovisión: los ahuaques o espíritus pluviales en la Sierra de Texcoco (México)|last = Lorente Fernández|first = David|date = 2006|journal = Boletín de Antropología Universidad de Antioquia|pages = 152–168|url-status = live|archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20151208163320/http://www.redalyc.org/articulo.oa?id=55703708|archive-date = 2015-12-08}}</ref> In this way, storytelling serves as a way to teach what the community values, such as valuing the environment.

Storytelling also serves to deliver a particular message during spiritual and ceremonial functions. In the ceremonial use of storytelling, the unity building theme of the message becomes more important than the time, place and characters of the message. Once the message is delivered, the story is finished. As cycles of the tale are told and retold, story units can recombine, showing various outcomes for a person's actions.<ref>VanDeusen, Kira. Raven and the Rock: Storytelling in Chukotka. Seattle [u.a.: Univ. of Washington [u.a., 1999.</ref>