Sharing Tradition
Frank LaPena (1937-2019)
About the Author
· Was born in 1937, in San Francisco, California
· Attended federal Indian boarding school in Stewart, Nevada.
· Received Bachelor of Arts degree from Chico State in 1965 and a Master of Arts in Anthropology at Sac State in 1978.
· Lectured widely on American Indian traditional and cultural issues, emphasizing California traditions
What is the essay about?
The essay ‘Sharing Tradition’ is about passing on culture and values from generation to generation through oral tradition. For this we must listen to our elders’ stories. Preserving and passing on culture is not easy. Young people are facing various obstacles while trying to put the traditions into practice.
Understanding the text
Answer the following questions
a. According to LaPena, what is the importance of the oral tradition? To what extent do you agree with his opinions and why?
According LaPena oral tradition is a living tradition which is helping maintain the values of culture, and it is also an art form. It is the oral tradition through which culture and values are passed on from generation to generation.
Yes, I strongly agree with his opinions because most of our cultural norms and values are unwritten. All of our ancestral practices are not codified. Only few of them are written and recorded. Protecting culture and values mean passing them on to future generation. To pass them, one must listen to his/her elders.
b. Who preserve and pass on the oral tradition?
The elders preserve and pass on the oral tradition by telling their stories. They continue their ancestral practices which automatically pass on to their future generation. For this, one must be attentive to his/her parents and grandparents.
c. What is the danger of not passing on information from generation to generation?
The danger of not passing on information from generation to generation is the death or decline of culture and values. Disappearance of one’s culture and values result into the loss of his/her identity. Only correct information enlivens the culture and erroneous one diverts and pollutes the cultural norms and values.
d. What is the difference between oral tradition and literary tradition?
The main difference between oral tradition and literary tradition is that oral tradition can be corrected but literary tradition can not be done so. Oral tradition is a living tradition which accommodates corrections because the stories are known by listeners. Literary tradition, a codified tradition, is almost impossible to be corrected because it is harder to correct the book published with erroneous information.
e. How does LaPena establish a relationship between art and the oral tradition?
LaPena establishes a relationship between art and the oral tradition by stating that the oral tradition has an impact on how an artist visualizes the stories, characters, the designs and colour for his/her art, the atmosphere and other useful information to him/her.
Reference to the context
a. LaPena states that the oral tradition helps maintain the values of a culture. If you believe that the oral tradition is important, how would you maintain it?
LaPena states that the oral tradition helps maintain the values of a culture. This means oral tradition is important to pass on culture and values from generation to generation. Most of the cultural norms and values and rules are unwritten but still alive. The oral tradition is a living tradition that regulates our culture. We can maintain it by listening to our elders and telling stories of our past, origin and the background to our future generation. Our tradition is our way of life and in a true sense, it is our identity. It must be preserved and transferred to our young ones. The oral tradition is only effective means to pass on culture and values from generation to generation as a never-ending cycle.
b. “Not everyone is capable of fulfilling the roles of the elders.” Explain this statement with reference to the essay.
Here, fulfilling the roles of the elders means preserving and passing the culture and values to the future generation. According to LaPena, as the elders pass on, the young people fill their places and everyone who lives long enough automatically becomes an elder but not everyone is capable of fulfilling the roles of the elders. Yong people who do not listen to their parents carefully can’t put their tradition into practice. Some of them can’t fill the special niche created by their elders. There are many people who can’t perform their religious obligations that are ceremony specific. Such activities and ritual rites are the true identity of people. Only those who pay enough attention to their parents are capable of fulfilling the roles of the elders. On the other hand, the young ones who don’t pay much attention to ritual rites or religious obligations and the stories told by their elders are not capable of fulfilling the roles of the elders.
c. What is the controlling idea or thesis of this essay?
The controlling idea of this essay is that the oral tradition is the only effective means to pass on culture and values from generation to generation. To preserve and pass on the cultural norms and values one must listen to his/her elders’ stories. As the elders pass on, the young people fill their places but not everyone is capable of fulfilling the roles of the elders for it is hard to maintain tradition in some circumstances. Oral tradition is a living tradition which can be corrected because the stories are known by the listeners.
d. How do topic sentences guide the reader through the essay? What would be lost without them?
The topic sentences foreshadow the following discourse of the essay. Readers can guess the possible development and deliberations by studying the topic sentences. They are like the signposts on the highway. The central idea is evident in the topic sentences which are made clearer with supporting details i.e., explanations and examples.
Without the topic sentences, readers can’t get the point of the essay. It is true that “well beginning is half done”. Appropriate use of topic sentences marks the well beginning of the essay. They have avoided ambiguity and guided the readers to be focused to the thesis of the essay.
e. What are the four major problems developed by LaPena with regard to maintaining the oral tradition. How are they used to structure the essay?
The four major problems developed by LaPena with regard to maintaining the oral tradition are as follows:
· Not everyone is capable of fulfilling the roles of the elders.
Some elders have enhanced their lives by creating a special niche and once they have passed on, that niche is hard to fill. All young ones do not pay much attention to their parents’ activities and performance of religious obligations on special ceremonies.
· New technology is creating a generation gap.
Each generation is faced with new technologies which replace the old; ever-growing population make necessary new developments that replace fertile land with housing and impact on the natural resources of air and water. Part of tradition is tied to a natural world which is being destroyed. Thus, imposition of new technology on people almost impossible to maintain traditions.
· Publication of books with erroneous information and falsely validating related research.
Oral materials always cannot be a source of data collection for the modern researchers. They are told something and may be figured out another. They may not understand well what have been told in some cases. The result is that erroneous information is published and falsely validates one’s research.
· Possible misrepresentation of oral tradition in the modern art.
The oral tradition has a direct impact on an artist’s work while visualizing the stories. There is a danger of altering the tradition as an artist’s work is abstract.
The above-mentioned problems are used to structure the essay in a logical order, i.e., maintaining the coherence to support the theme reflected in the topic sentences. One of the obvious themes is that the oral tradition is a means to pass on culture, values and norms from generation to generation but it is hard to practise.
