The Intersection of Karuk Storytelling and Education

Or, more to the point, “I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the
Father but by me.” (John 14:6) And how did all this play out in the schools? Of the
Hampton Institute, David Wallace Adams writes, “In Sunday school, the Hampton
Institute reported, ‘the teacher endeavors to put into these almost empty minds the
simplest, and at the same time the most strengthening, truth of God’s Word.’… Stories of
David and Goliath, the separation of the waters, the slaying of the Philistines, and the
resurrection of Christ were easily the equals of the wonders told by tribal medicine men.”
(168) While some of this Christian indoctrination worked, and may be part of Christian
practice in Indian country today, sometimes it fell on deaf ears. Adams continues,
Some students were apparently confused by it all. In some schools pupils
were forced to repeat the words of Bible verses and hymns with no
explanation of the meaning behind the phrases. For younger students,
language presented a problem. A former student at Tuba City boarding
school bitterly remembers two-hour Sunday sermons, even though ‘some
of us who did not understand the full meaning of the sermons would get
bored and fall asleep.’ (170)
Sleeping through boring sermons is by no means exclusive to Indian children, but in the
context of government mandated assimilation, it also constitutes a passive means of
resistance. Other students were more active in their resistance to Christianization.
Chippewa student Thomas St. Germaine wrote in a Haskell Institute publication in 1914
that “There are two gods, the white man’s god and our god, and if you break the laws of
our religion by adopting that of the white man and try to enter where their souls go they
will not take you in…” (Indian Legends and Superstitions 89), a sentiment reflected in
current neo-conservative religious beliefs amongst some of the High Dance People of
northwest California (Buckley 2002, 254)
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