"In the culture and literature of Indian America, the meaning of myth may be discovered, not as speculation about primitive long-dead ancestral societies but in terms of what is real, actual, and viable in living cultures in America. Myth abounds in all of its forms; from the most sacred stories to the most trivial, mythic vision informs the prose and poetry of American Indians in the United States as well as the rest of the Americas. An American Indian myth is a story that relies preeminently on symbol for its articulation. It generally relates a series of events and uses supernatural, heroic figures as the agents of both the events and the symbols. As a story, it demands the immediate, direct participation of the listener. American Indian myths depend for their magic on relationship and participation. Detached, analytical, distanced observation of myth will not allow the listener mythopoeic vision. Consequently, these myths cannot be understood more than peripherally by the adding-machine mind; for when a myth is removed from its special and necessary context, it is no longer myth; it is a dead or dying curiosity. It is akin, in that state, to the postcard depictions of American Indian people that abound in the southwestern United States."
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Novelists from the United StatesLiterary criticsCritics from the United States20th-century poets from the United StatesFeminists from the United States
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Paula Gunn Allen
Paula Gunn Allen (October 24, 1939 – May 29, 2008) was an American poet, literary critic, activist, professor, and novelist. Of mixed-race European-American, Native American, and Arab-American descent, she identified with her mother's people, the Laguna Pueblo and childhood years. She drew from its oral traditions for her fiction poetry and also wrote numerous essays on its themes. She edited four collections of Native American traditional stories and contemporary works and wrote two biographies
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