The Intersection of Karuk Storytelling and Education

These stories were also told through song. Arnold and Reed, interacting with the
Káruk-aráaras penchant for music, fared well with teaching their pupils/congregation
hymns from the Episcopal hymnbook. Their efforts seem to have been well received, and,
they were not exclusionary to Káruk music. They note that Sunday School at ‘Ayíthrim
would begin with Christian hymns, repeating the verse eight or ten times Káruk style, and
end with Káruk drum and hunting songs. (174) They also take credit for an upsurge in the
popularity of traditional dances in the region, at the expense of alcohol-fueled “white
dances.” (206) Elsewhere, the Indian education system was more interested in replacing
Indian storytelling repertoires with the mainstream American one, as opposed to adding
to it. In the 1890s, the Indian Office seems to have tried the tactic of not leaving the
students time for anything but Christianity:
…schools were also expected to develop a systematic program of religious
instruction. A typical week’s activities included Sunday morning,
afternoon, and evening services, daily morning and evening prayers, and a
special Wednesday evening prayer meeting. As for the content of religious
instruction, teachers were encouraged to emphasize the Ten
Commandments, the beatitudes, and prominent psalms. (Adams 167-168)
Drama also found its way into the curriculum. Cahill mentions that the Hoopa
Valley School put on a production of Ernest Thompson Seton’s musical The Wild Animal
Play for Children. (141) As one of the founders of the Boy Scouts of America, and the
founder of the Woodcraft Indians (“Biographical Information about Ernest Thompson
Seton”), the administrators at Hoopa Valley must have thought his work would be
appropriate for Indian children. While institutions like Woodcraft Indians smack of
cultural appropriation and “playing Indian” to the modern ear, and the BSA has certainly
been guilty of these things, the intent seems to me to have been to incorporate things into
the curriculum that the administration thought the students could relate to. As such, it is
23