Nature and Narrative: Understanding the Nuances of Nature through Native American Literature

Abstract

The Native American or the American Indians are the indigenous people of the continent and their literature reflects the traditional oral and written literature with extensive set of folktales, myths and oral histories that were transmitted by storytellers through centuries. Although they differ from mainstream literatures in themes, concerns and ideas; what is inherently significant in them is their approach to ‘Nature’. While Euro- American literatures are in a race, rather a competition with nature, Native Americans are seen living in harmony with it. Unlike mainstream literature, Native realise their dreams of culture and society in nature. Even Wordsworth the representative poet of nature has only utilised it in his ideology of Pantheism. In Hemingway, nature is predominant but only a facilitator for realisation of sublime self of the protagonist and characters. So is it in Eugene O’ Neil, Emerson and Whitman. But, Native American canon has seen Nature as an animate being, as sacred as life itself. Their reverence for land, faith in cardinal directions, importance of word, echoes of silence and spiritual beliefs in purpose of life finds unsurpassable semblance in their written literature through myths and folktales. These folktales not only carry the identity of race with them, but the underlying messages in such tales often convey the idea of conserving nature.  Native American literature hence draws attention to nature in different lights and elicits why it is important to go back to them, in order to conserve what is left. This paper aims to delve into American Indian notions of nature and substantiate the idea further by tracing a few analogies from both oral and written forms such as the works of Renaissance writers like Scott Momoday and Leslie Marmon Silko with the theory of eco criticism