The Intersection of Karuk Storytelling and Education

Chapter 1: Introduction
This is a thesis about myths. It is also a telling and a critique of a particular myth,
that I’m calling the “Myth of the Indian Renaissance.” But, before we can continue, we
need to establish a common definition of “myth.” An etymological approach will only
yield the definition “story,” a definition that does not address the centrality of myth in
human existence. Stories define us, both as individuals and as communities. Calvin O.
Schrag holds that “To be a self is to be able to render an account of oneself, to be able to
tell the story of one’s life.” (26) The first part of this definition owes an implicit debt to
Plato’s Theaetetus, where Socrates and Theaetetus consider whether giving an account of
something is a necessary part of knowledge. (206c-209e) Although they reject that
proposition, they do define “giving an account” as describing the parts of a thing. Schrag
accepts that an account is a part of selfhood, but continues by requiring that the account
be framed as a narrative. Why is this? “Narrative,” according to Schrag, “provides the
ongoing context in which the figures of discourse are embedded and achieve their
determinations of sense and reference.” (19) In other words, discourse, “an amalgam of
speech and language,” will disintegrate into individually senseless units without
narrative. (20) But how does narrative contextualize in a way that dance, music, painting
or other non-narrative media don’t? The key difference is language. Dance synthesizes
music and movement, music harmony and melody, and painting color and shape. But
only narrative contextualizes language. What’s the importance of language in the project
of self-building? Robert N. Bellah cites Jerome Bruner’s study that “conversations at
home between mothers and preschool children showed that narratives occurred every
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