Telling New Myths: Contemporary Native American Animal Narratives from Michigan

Abstract

Abstract Telling new myths (“teachings”), Ojibwe people in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan engage in creative processes of cultural renewal, like many Native Americans today. These narratives fit the genre of myth from a folkloristic perspective, but are newly shaped to speak to contemporary experiences of a resurgent, emergent culture. These new myths involve animals (such as wolves, coyotes, and buffalo) as main characters and demonstrate a mythic structure of movement from chaos (the period of post-European/American dominance and destruction of traditional cultures) toward cosmos (the “good road” of a Native-centered worldview).