Story-Telling.
Some Indian children have almost the advantages of the modern home in the way of story-telling. Clark informs us (420.109):—
"Some tribes have regular story-tellers, men who have devoted a great deal of time to learning the myths and stories of their people, and who possess, in addition to a good memory, a vivid imagination. The mother sends for one of these, and, having prepared a feast for him, she and her little 'brood,' who are curled up near her, await the fairy stories of the dreamer, who, after his feast and smoke, entertains them for hours. Many of these fanciful sketches or visions are interesting and beautiful in their rich imagery, and have been at times given erroneous positions in ethnological data."
Knortz refers in glowing terms to the adisoke-winini, or "storyteller" of the Chippeway Indians, those gifted men, who entertain their fellows with the tales and legends of the race, and who are not mere reciters, but often poets and transformers as well (Skizzen, 294).
So, too, among the Andaman Islanders, "certain mythic legends are related to the young by okopai-ads [shamans], parents, and others, which refer to the supposed adventures or history of remote ancestors, and though the recital not unfrequently evokes much mirth, they are none the less accepted as veracious" (498. 95).
Morals.
Among some of the native tribes of California we meet with i-wa-musp, or "men-women" (519. 132). Among the Yuki, for example, there were men who dressed and acted like women, and "devoted themselves to the instruction of the young by the narration of legends and moral tales." Some of these, Mr. Powers informs us, "have been known to shut themselves up in the assembly-hall for the space of a month, with brief intermissions, living the life of a hermit, and spending the whole time in rehearsing the tribal-history in a sing-song monotone to all who chose to listen."
Somewhat similar, without the hermit-life, appear to be the functions of the orators and "prophets" of the Miwok and the peace-chiefs, or "shell-men," of the Pomo (519. 157, 352). Of the Indians of the Pueblo of Tehua, Mr. Lummis, in his entertaining volume of fairy-tales, says: "There is no duty to which a Pueblo child is trained in which he has to be content with the bare command, 'Do thus'; for each he learns a fairy- tale designed to explain how people first came to know that it was right to do thus, and detailing the sad results which befell those who did otherwise." The old men appear to be the storytellers, and their tales are told in a sort of blank verse (302. 5).
Mr. Grinnell, in his excellent book about the Blackfeet,—one of the best books ever written about the Indians,—gives some interesting details of child-life. Children are never whipped, and "are instructed in manners as well as in other more general and more important matters." Among other methods of instruction we find that "men would make long speeches to groups of boys playing in the camps, telling them what they ought to do to be successful in life," etc. (464. 188-191).
Of the Delaware Indians we are told that "when a mere boy the Indian lad would be permitted to sit in the village councilhouse, and hear the assembled wisdom of the village or his tribe discuss the affairs of state and expound the meaning of the keekg' (beads composing the wampum belts)…. In this way he early acquired maturity of thought, and was taught the traditions of his people, and the course of conduct calculated to win him the praise of his fellows" (516. 43). This reminds us of the Roman senator who had his child set upon his knee during the session of that great legislative and deliberative body.