We mark the time with ceremonies not privy to the public. Ho-Chunk Nation of Wisconsin: We have to wait for the Winter Moon, and there has to be snow on Mother Earth for those stories.īlackfoot (Calgary, Alberta): Blackfoots are the same with the snow and stories.Īcoma Pueblo (New Mexico): The winter solstice marks our New Year in Acoma. Soon he would start telling stories most of the night. Then my grandpa would put a bundle at his feet. We would eat dinner they would visit, smoke. My grandfather would ask a really older man to come visit.
San Carlos Apache (Arizona): This reminds me when I was young. The storyteller will often take the tobacco outside and place it on the earth as an offering to the spirits of the story. To be respectful, a gift of tobacco is offered to the storyteller before the story begins. To have a storyteller tell you a story is like receiving a gift. To be respectful, people waited until the winter when animals hibernate or become less active so they cannot hear themselves being talked about. Another reason is that many traditional stories contain animal characters. It was in the winter, with the long dark evenings, the snow and wind blowing outside, that telling stories was a way to entertain and teach the children. This was a practical choice given the fact that during the other season's, people were busy growing, gathering, and hunting food. Traditional storytelling is reserved for the winter months for many tribes. Like many events in American Indian culture there is a proper time and place for all activities.
Ojibwe (Minnesota Chippewa Tribe): This description of winter in many Native communities was prepared by the Indian Land Tenure Foundation/ Lessons of Our Land as background for teachers: Their answers highlight winter as a time for storytelling. As we did before the solar eclipse in August, this December we asked our Native friends to share traditions they’ve heard about the winter solstice. North of the Arctic Circle, it will be the midpoint of the period of darkness, when even twilight doesn’t reach the horizon. In the Northern Hemisphere, December 21 will be the year’s day of least sunlight, when the sun takes its lowest, shortest path across the sky.
Indian Arts and Crafts Board Headquarters Collection, Department of the Interior, at the National Museum of the American Indian.
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