PHOTO BY CLARE JENSEN

Variations of storytelling such as through song (shown above) and carved totems (right) were highlighted during the workshop, which focused primarily on oral storytelling of legends and tribal history.

Workshop plants seeds for Puyallup storytellers

By Clare Jensen

Elaine Grinnell remembers when her grandfather would tell her stories in the light of a crackling fire. She was captivated by his words and intent on listening to his tales, largely in part because there was nothing else for her to do as a little girl during a World War II blackout.

Today, youth are immersed in a fast-paced, technological world where verbal communication exists less than it did 10 years ago, making storytelling even less prevalent.

Indian storytellers from various Salish tribes, Elaine Grinnell, Roger Fernandez and Esther Stutzman, attempted to bring the focus back on verbal communication and traditional storytelling to young people at the Puyallup Youth Center Nov. 8, 9 and 10, at the youth storytelling workshop – the first of its kind on the Puyallup Reservation.

“A lot of kids are so reluctant to even talk,” observed Elaine Grinnell at the workshop Nov. 10. “Once they find out that communication is fun – that’s a good thing. They don’t realize how much they’re gaining.”

Twenty-three high school, middle school and elementary-aged children from Chief Leschi School signed up for the free workshop. They each brought a story or legend representing the history or beliefs of their respective tribes to the weekend workshop to practice, and learn what a storyteller is, before presenting their story to an audience Nov. 10.

“We like people to go back to things that their grandparents told…or their great grandparents told,” said Rose High Bear, coordinator for the event from the Northwest Indian Storytellers Association and founder of Wisdom of the Elders. “Stories are something that used to be told all the time…every evening. This is an opportunity for the students to connect to their heritage. It allows them to restore some of what was lost among our people.”

The veteran storytellers worked with small groups of youth in developing their confidence, learning a story and making it their own.

 “Human beings are storytellers. Teaching someone how to tell a story is like teaching someone how to breathe,” Roger Fernandez said of his work over the weekend. “All we have to do is remind them the importance of doing this.” He noted that learning stories from other storytellers, elders or other Native people is pertinent in passing on wisdom and history from generation to generation. “Storytelling is the most powerful, profound (way of) sharing.”

Since the youth were primarily working with stories that they had written down from their elders or gotten from a book or the Internet, trying to remember the story was one of the biggest struggles.

“Don’t memorize – visualize,” was Elaine Grinnell’s advice to her group of elementary students who were attempting to remember their story word for word from a written document. “Tell the story as you see it play in your head.”

At the end of the three-day workshop, parents of the emerging storytellers and community members gathered at the youth center to see the final presentation of all their hard work over the weekend. Most of the younger children confidently read their stories from their paper to the crowd while many of the older youth told their stories by heart and incorporated physical animation, something that they learned was a crucial aspect of storytelling from their mentors.

“Just getting them up there to tell a story is paramount,” Roger Fernandez said. “We’re hoping that out of this will come some young Puyallup storytellers. If one or two of them leave here and say ‘I’m a storyteller’ then we did our job.”

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