There were more than two thousand tribes in the Americas when Columbus first came to the West Indies in 1492. In the next five hundred years, due to European settlement, many of the tribes were destroyed or threatened by disease, war, and government policies. There are about five hundred tribes remaining in the United States today (Harvey 11). The destruction of these tribes means not only the demise of lives but also the demise of a culture.

Even though the indigenous people suffered great loss in land and culture their pride and traditions live on. It is through these surviving traditions stories of early times are salvaged. Most of the Native American traditions distinguish between songs and narratives. Many a

Dualism is another part of writing because things in nature, colors, and word are thought of in pairs. In some cases the use of these pairs is to show sexuality, for instance, white might be the male color and yellow the female color. Another belief is in Father Sky and Mother Earth. The sun or sky represents the father in which his rain, or sunlight nourishes the Earth, who is the mother. A poem written by Anna L. Walters, a Pawnee-Otoe, called "I am of the Earth", talks about Mother Earth.

Besides the translations of oral stories and legends from early Native Americans come pieces written by Indian authors about history. From the 1850s to the 1890s, most of the works written by Indian authors were histories of tribes from the East and Midwest. This history of literature goes along with the history of the white migration across the United States. These books deal with policies that forced the Indians onto reservations and the children into schools ran by whites to make them more acceptable in white society (Ruoff 7).

During the late nineteenth century and during the twentieth century came personal narratives. It was an autobiography in which someone wrote down the life story of an older Indian. One example is the narrative of Black Elk called Wasichus in the Hills; it tells the story of a Sioux holly man (Riley 97-106). One of the best of the autobiographies written in the early 1900's was The Middle Five: Indian Schoolboys of the Omaha Tribe written by Francis LaFlesche in 1900. It describes the experiences of his friends at a Presbyterian Mission School in Bellevue, Nebraska and shows the nature of an Indian boy (Riley 117-133).

Indians have contributed greatly to the collection, translation, and interpretation of their oral literatures between. Books filled with collections of writings are called anthologies. These usually include translated or interpreted works of many different Indian authors. Sometimes the accuracy of these stories is not as well conveyed as intended. It is difficult to get the direct translation or meaning of the story because the Native language does not translate perfectly to English (HillWitt xxvi-xxvii).

Some topics in this essay:
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