The Intersection of Karuk Storytelling and Education

am a Káruk-ára from the villages of Taxasúfkara and Ka’tim’îin, my sympathies are
decidedly with my people. As such, it’s important for the reader to know the general
structure of the story I’m telling so that they can judge for themselves how this river
flows in spite of my admitted biases.
The Myth of the Indian Renaissance is not a single story, but rather a structure
over which stories are woven. Hence, “myth” in this instance reflects Robertson’s loose
definition that “Myths are stories; they are attitudes extracted from stories; they are ‘the
way things are’ as people in a particular society believe them to be; and they are the
models people refer to when they try to understand their world and its behavior.” (xv)
This myth says that virtually all of the evils in Indian Country today can be traced back to
colonization, and that the only way to resist is to hold true to one’s own indigenous
culture. Iterations have been told since Europe’s invasion of the continent, and seem to
have originated in part from concerns about economic dependence upon colonial powers.
The Delaware Prophet reported in 1762 that the Master of Life had asked him,
Wherefore do you suffer the whites to dwell upon your lands? Can you not
do without them? I know that those whom you call the children of your
Great Father [the King of France] supply your wants; but were you not
wicked as you are you would not need them. You might live as you did
before you knew them. Before those whom you call your brothers [the
French] had arrived, did not your bow and arrow maintain you? You
needed neither gun, powder, nor any other object. The flesh of animals
was your food; their skins your raiment. (Mooney 665)
Religion was a prominent feature of the myth in its 1762 iteration – remember it’s a
prophecy given by the “Master of Life” – but by the late 1800s, religion had become the
dominant feature. Tävibo, the first Ghost Dance prophet, said “The divine spirit had
become so much incensed at the lack of faith in the prophecies, that it was revealed to his
chosen one that those Indians who believed in the prophecy would be resurrected and be
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