The Intersection of Karuk Storytelling and Education

Chapter 6: Conclusion
Educational forms have had a pervasive impact on Káruk storytelling from classic
times to the present. In classic Káruk culture, storytelling was one part of a broad
educational structure that ranged from the sweathouses and villages on the creeks and
River, to the high spiritual places in the mountains. Storytelling was often used to help
students find their way from the villages to the mountains and back again in an effort to
learn more about themselves, about why they were in the world, and how they fit into a
cultural complex based around High Dance or World Renewal ceremonies. American
education, in policy and often in practice, meant to annihilate these stories and the culture
they were a part of, replacing them with American stories and cultural practices. America
cannot exist without appropriating other people’s countries, and in the effort of nationbuilding
and nation-sustaining, it must negate competing claims to those lands. The
powerful bond between Káruk culture, with its partner constituents education and
storytelling, constitutes such a claim. As such, America used education and storytelling to
assimilate Káruk-varâaras into mainstream American society. The educational system
began as the segregated Indian boarding schools, but progressed into integrated public
schools. But the same stories were generally still told, especially the American myths of
Manifest Destiny and the Vanishing Indian. The first is told to establish American title to
the continent, the second to negate those of indigenous peoples. As can be expected,
Indian culture didn’t fare well with the children being indoctrinated with these stories.
This, however, was accompanied by another trend, one that subverted it. This trend
involved Káruk-varâaras continuing to speak our language, tell our stories, and
sometimes use sweathouse and practice mountain training. (cf. Buckley 2002) But it also
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