Introduction
Stories can be told in many different ways: acted out on stage, in film, or on television, sung in a musical or an opera, written in a favorite book, or told orally. Some of my favorites are those told on holidays while sitting around the dinner table, or on the front porch on a cool summer evening. For some reason, it does not matter how many times I hear a story about my grandparent's courtship, I still listen as intently as I did the very first time because it connects me to my parents and my extended family. For many cultures, oral tradition is a way of linking the past to the future. Listening to a story being told by an older relative is often intriguing and mysterious; at times it seems as though they are not just telling a story, but revealing secrets that can only be revealed by their generation. My students are so accustomed to picking up a book or newspaper, or finding information on an internet search engine to find out historical information on a particular place or time that interests them. They fail to realize that oral tradition is very much alive in cultures around the world today. Something as simple as citing a source on the bibliography page for this unit made me realize just how powerful the sustainability of oral tradition is in some cultures. I could not cite an author or editor, because there is no one author for a story that was told for hundreds of years before a written language existed in some cultures. With the theme of "Origins" in mind, my goal for this unit is to demonstrate how culturally significant oral tradition is in Ireland, Japan and West Africa by studying the types of storytellers that emerged from all three cultures and reading the ancient epic myths recited by such storytellers today.
Comments: