The Intersection of Karuk Storytelling and Education

Chapter 2: Classic Káruk Education
Classic Káruk education, as I have received it, is predicated by two beliefs or
“knowledges.” The first is that we all came into this world with a purpose, and it’s our
responsibility to find out what that purpose is and to pursue it. We existed before we
came here, and did so for a specific reason. The part of us that enters this world is our
real self, and it is this that education is meant to develop. The second belief is that we can
do that by learning about and practicing the teachings of Ikxaréeyavs, or the spiritual
beings who inhabited the world before human beings and continue to do so as landmarks,
plants or animals. One of the ways that we can begin to learn about the Ikxaréeyavs is to
tell stories about them. These stories are called pikvah, or “creation stories,” and
constitute a significant learning tool in classic Káruk education.
An important outcome of this worldview is that a person is ultimately responsible
for his or her own education, his or her own well being. Thomas Buckley, in his
discussion of Yurok education (the Yurok’s are, literally, the “downriver” neighbors of
the upriver Káruk people, and are virtually identical culturally), phrases this concept in
terms of Indian Law by saying that over-explanation is stealing “a person’s opportunity
to learn, and stealing is against the Law.” (1979, 31). His research, and my own
experience with classic Káruk education’s modern incarnations, indicates that “overexplanation”
constitutes practically any explanation at all. According to Buckley, “…a
young child is actively taught very little; it learns by watching and copying when it has
enough interest. Most things are not explained, since people can only learn by and for
themselves, learn to sort out facts, to draw conclusions about what works and what does
not.” (30-31) In modern parlance, you “earn to learn.” That is to say, you have to work
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