The Intersection of Karuk Storytelling and Education

storytelling. One of the most pervasive of these has been the change in languages. The
Káruk language, or Araaráhi (“the people’s language”) is of questionable lineage.
William Bright addresses this question in the “Introduction” to his monumental Karok
Language: “The Karok language is not closely or obviously related to any other. It has,
however, been classified as a member of the northern group of Hokan languages, in a
subgroup which includes Chimariko and the Shastan languages, spoken in the same
general part of California as Karok itself. Considerable work remains to be done before
the historical position of Karok can be properly clarified.” (1) Historically, our people
were often multilingual: we had to be, living in such close proximity to the Yurok, who
spoke an Algic language; and the Hupa, who spoke an Athabascan language. For
perspective, Hokan, Algic and Athabascan are language families like Indo-European or
Sino-Tibetan. Káruk is as little related to the languages of our nearest neighbors as it is to
English, or as English is to Han Chinese. So it comes as no surprise that Káruk speakers
would have taken up English as well upon the influx of the Americans. In fact, learning
English seems to have been a popular thing to do upriver when field matrons Mary
Ellicott Arnold and Mabel Reed established a school there. What does not follow from
this equation alone is that English would supplant Káruk, but our discussion of settler
colonialism gives us our explanation: it’s in America’s national interest to annihilate
anything that might constitute a competing claim to the continent, and elements of
indigenous cultures do. How did schools factor into this? Arnold and Reed’s school
seems to have been benign – they even made an effort to learn Araráhi. (Arnold & Reed
243-244) But their actions did not represent official policy. In its effort to extinguish
Native cultures as viable rivals for the land, and to incorporate them into the fabric of
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