Piece Description

In 1969, the pioneer N. Scott Momaday won the Pulitzer Prize for his novel House Made of Dawn. With his 1969 book, The Way to Rainy Mountain, about Kiowa history and traditions, he showed how a writer could bring an oral literary tradition to the printed page. The following decade continued the development of American Indian and Alaska-Native literature. People wrote both in English and in their tribal languages. Fiction, poetry, songs, essays, and news articles form a body of work that reflects tribal tales and traditions, as well as issues of concern to the American Indian and Alaska-Native communities. On this edition of What's the Word?, three writers and teachers talk about how their tribal traditions influence their work. Ofelia Zepeda, winner of a 1999 MacArthur Fellowship, shares the poetry that she writes both in English and her tribal language, O'odham. Robert Warrior takes us back to the nineteenth century for a look at the written 1881 constitution of the Osage nation and the oral version of the nation's origins. And Jean Breinig reads and talks about writings from her tribe, the Haida, in Alaska.

Evergreen

Well suited to National American Indian and Alaska-Native Heritage Month in November

Photo: Ofelia Zepeda

Photo Credit: Tony Celentano

Thirty-second promo available.

This piece has a companion, What's the Word? "Voices from the Ojibwe Nation".