Off the Cuff / My Other Journal

Oral Stories

The year is 1960. My friend and I are sitting in front of my grandmother and her grandmother, who have also been friends all through their ages, as we listen to a story told by my grandmother. It is about some mischief that these two women and their circle of friends got into when they were our age.

My friend's grandmother cuts in. "But it wasn't so. You remember it wrong. This is what happened." She takes it on herself to tell the real story, her version.

Then my grandma interrupts. "No, you're wrong. That happened when..." And she takes the story to a different time and place.

At the end, my friend and I double up laughing at the several different versions of stories--recalled, speculated, or patched-, without realizing how much richer we've become with the storytelling of these two old women.

This is only a memory of mine no matter how recalled, speculated, or patched it is, but it is an example of my family's kind of an oral storytelling.


Oral storytelling -I learned later- had been around all through the history, since olden times before today's contraptions, before books, before writing was a concept, and probably before the wheel was invented and Prometheus stole the fire from the gods.

Some of Prometheus's sparks must have sneaked into the voices of all storytellers, as their stories have been the prime entertainment in ceremonies and in the evening when the families or the tribe gathered around the fire. Even in our day, campfire stories carry a bit of those old flavors.

Oral stories are collective enterprises with ever-changing nuances enhanced and preserved in narrative form. They are not only stories for passing time but also are part of a system for preserving a group's beliefs, customs, and history for passing from generation to generation.

We come across oral story traditions in practically all continents' and cultures' narratives. Some of those tales are told in a plain fashion; others are enhanced by the storyteller's style, his or her enunciation, voice, expression, and diction. Some of the stories are told with the accompaniment of musical instruments or singing.

Most of the stories' plots are made up to serve as teachings to the younger generation; others reflect the real life events of the tribe; still others are told for titillation, with sensational passages and characters and the storyteller withholding important and exciting information until the end of the story to create suspense and tension, a popular tool still in good use by today's writers for the craft of fiction.

Several of those stories have been developed into written words and gospels, later. Others are still told around campfires.

Here is a tale from Chippewa Indians about the demigod and cultural hero Wenebojo.

Wenebojo and the Cranberries

Wenebojo was walking along one day by the edge of a lake and saw some high-bush cranberries lying in the shallow water. He stuck his hand in the water and tried to get them, but he couldn't. He tried over and over again to get those cranberries. Finally, he gave up trying to stick his hand in the water and instead, he tried to grab them with his mouth by sticking his head in the water. That didn't work either, so he dove down into the water. The water was so shallow that the little rocks in the bottom hurt his face. He jumped out of the water and lay down on his back on the shore holding his face. He opened his eyes and there were the berries hanging above him! He had only seen their reflection in the water. But he was so angry that he tore the berries off the tree and didn't eat any, and he walked away.
From Wisconsin Chippewa Myths and Tales and Their Relation to Chippewa Life by Victor Barnouw