Aboriginal Literature Float the Oral Term Paper

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Interestingly, "A Song After Battle" contained passages that symbolically considered battling as a rite of passage of the male from being a young man or boy to being a true man and warrior. The song's first four lines stated, "As the young men went by I was looking for him. It surprises me anew That he has gone." This passage from the song poem reflected the change within the male, wherein victory or defeat after each battle was considered a phase wherein his youth gives way to learning and wisdom, which aided the male as he developed into a more mature and courageous man and warrior.

Pawnee song poetry, meanwhile, was identified as more religious and ceremonial in nature, incorporating dances while narrating to its family and community the tribe's song poems. For every occasion in the Pawnee Indian's life, a dance and belief in the mystical were associated in it, as was apparent in the "Buffalo dance song," "spring song," "dream song," and "ghost dance song."

Like the Sioux, Pawnee Indians associate themselves as part of nature -- that is, as one of nature's elements. In the "buffalo dance song" and "spring song," animal and plant elements were incorporated as the Indians' way of marking a new phase in their lives, such as the passing of a new season or overcoming an essential yet mundane activity, such as catching a buffalo for food. Mystical elements were present in the "dream song" and "ghost dance song," wherein atmospheric elements such as the thunder and 'yellow star' (which may be construed as the sun or simply a star) were integrated into the religious ritual of expressing gratitude for nature.

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The Pawnee song poetry differed radically from the Sioux in that nature for the former was considered as the provider of the Indians' basic survival needs; the Sioux, meanwhile, considered nature and its elements as possessing the power to make them more courageous -- that is, the ability to inhabit the human spirit for noble causes such as waging war against enemy tribes.

Lastly, song poetry among the Papago was created to illustrate the family-centeredness of its people, focusing especially on mundane activities such as the conduct of human healing. This was highlighted in the song poem, "healing song," which utilized air, land, and sea elements as the orator or poet plead for nature to provides it healing power, which was an essential part of the healing ritual. In the song poem's passage, "In the great night my heart will go out. Toward me the darkness comes rattling. In the great night my heart will go out," the Papago Indians possessed the virtue of humility, in the same way that the Sioux and Pawnee tribes showed humility when asking for nature's allegiance and help in the conduct of their daily endeavors in life.

As was reflected in the oral literature of the Native Indians, nature was an essential component that was always incorporated in the Sioux, Pawnee, and Papago tribes' song poems. Though there is similarity in terms of subsistence to nature, song poetry among the three tribes differed in that each had unique characteristics, such as being family-centeredness (Papago) and usage of song poems for war (Sioux) and religious and ceremonial rituals (Pawnee)......

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