Paying reverence to the story: The marriage of traditions in Silko's yellow woman stories

Since before there was written word, Native Americans have been reciting stories that serve to teach, preserve and continue the past. Leslie Marmon Silko takes the ancient tales of the Laguna Pueblo, records them and makes them a part of the western canon. It is in her yellow woman stories that Silko deftly unites the oral chants of her indigenous people with the western tradition of the hero quest narrative.;This thesis first examines the histories of both written and oral traditions and shows how they are similar regarding the essential nature of storytelling. Using the theories of Richard Hughes, Carl Jung and Joseph Campbell, it then demonstrates how "Yellow Woman" and the Ka'stina section of Ceremony fit into the archetypal quest pattern as displaced by Silko's own originality. It shows how Silko has uniquely amalgamated the oral tradition with the western one to create fiction that honors both.