Keeping the Stories Alive

Thomas Doty – Storyteller

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Since the Old Time, native people have kept their stories alive by telling them. Night after night. For centuries! Everything cultural is passed through the stories ... history, folklore, beliefs. To be native means knowing and living your stories. On the reservations, after being forcibly removed from their homelands, the people were warned they would be severely punished if they spoke their language or told their stories. Even then, they gathered each evening, unseen in the shadows. And they whispered their stories, night after night after night.