The Intersection of Karuk Storytelling and Education

made at Weɫkwäu at the mouth of the Klamath; and finished with
interlardings of descriptions of the ritual and taboos. There is no formal
unity to the account; but it seems to be much the sort of thing which a
Yurok might now and then string together to tell his son or nephew as they
lay in the sweathouse. (Kroeber & Gifford 1949, 120)
Buckley also describes a brief, koan-like poem that was used as a teaching tool. His
description of its use bears notable similarity to the modern-day Yurok’s repeating the
end of a story, “mantralike”: “Having been given such a song by a teacher it is up to the
student to show the teacher that he knows what it means; that he is capable of perceiving,
of experiencing the facts referred to.” (1979, 36) Many pikvah also incorporate song, so
what we’re considering is in fact a collection of formally and thematically linked oral
literature, rather than several discrete genres, a la Aristotle, that apparently stand apart
from one another. It seems that while they can be lessons in and of themselves, they can
often be used to help guide a student in another undertaking. I would like to consider
three pursuits that have a significant role in education, and how pikvah and other forms of
educational oral literature interact with them: sweathouse, classic menstrual practices,
and mountain training.
Sweathouse was a standard element of men’s and female doctors’ training in
classic Káruk culture, and is still used by some men and women today. Aboriginally a
semi-subterranean structure, every village had at least one for daily use, which also
served as the men’s dwelling-space. Certain villages had one restricted to only
ceremonial use. Kroeber and Gifford include this diagram of the Ka’tim’îin sacred
sweathouse in their World Renewal:
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