History of Storytelling, Essay Example

The history of storytelling goes back to the dawn of humankind as a way to share with future generations. The centuries of storytelling covers every civilization from the beginning of time that has shared historical cultural moments. The folklore has used the word of mouth from generation to generation to share the story of their civilization. The storytelling tradition is the primary reason society has developed over millions of years. The art of storytelling has existed long before history was recorded on cave walls. The previous civilizations all contributed some kind of storytelling methods to share the knowledge of the past. The cave dwellers use rocks to record history, the priest recorded the gospel and the romans used artifacts. The world could not have the technology today without lessons learned from past generations by the way of storytelling.

The storytelling process is still apart of society today such as parents documenting their family trees to preserve for their children. The family sitting around a campfire telling stories about their grandparent’s journey and lessons learned. The NASA organization that put people on the month sends messages such as broadcast of the Beatles songs transmitted from the satellite in space (NASA, 2008). The results of storytelling are all around us from the traditions, family trees and the way of life, that extends across the universe. It does not matter what country or civilization has been built on the historical successes and failures from the archives of past civilizations. The Americans, Africans, French and Germans all have learned from our previous societies that has improved our knowledge base, technology, agriculture, laws and everything in our society that makes us great today.

The history of storytelling has been shared in many forms such as oral, written, ballads, musical pieces, art expression, and drawings. The only way any civilization can learn from the past is though storytelling that shares important information for the next generation. The storytelling process can be seen as a way for families to track their own family traditions. Another important purpose of storytelling is how different civilization passing down their knowledge learned and contributions to society. The secondary purpose of storytelling is to clarify events, floods or disasters so the next generation would have the knowledge of how to live with nature. The third purpose of storytelling is to share he common belief systems that bound each generation to the next generation concerning beliefs and heritage. One of the purposes of storytelling is the transfers knowledge, stories, and traditions keeping the stories of the past in the present.

The best example is the story of “The Christmas story” that is reacted in most churches around the world is found in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke. The biblical story about Jesus Christ has been handed down from generation to generation in the form of storytelling (Harrington 1). The art of storytelling was perfected long before man could write and stories were passed forward by memory, carvings in caves, and perfecting the art of listening.

There are many purposes of storytelling such as the interaction between society that keeps each generation link to each other in culture, traditions, and beliefs. The storytelling purpose for the past societies was not for entertainment purposes it an opportunity for families to bond. The storytelling was a way to pass on family traditions in the context of the society as a whole. The primary method would be the oral telling of historical events however, before man could talk cave drawings with pictures passed on wisdom.

Importance Development of Human Society

Storytelling is important because it helps develop human society by sharing the way each society lived for the next generations. The development of the human society could not have progressed without the passing on knowledge and lessons learned from earlier civilizations. The storytelling has been the reason that each generation has evolved and improved. According to Jirata and Simonsen (2014), storytelling has been a ritual that allowed cultures to transfer cultural habits, social norms, and cultural values. In addition, the narratives are retold by the children to preserve and help the development of the human race (pg.1). The historical events such as major floods that wiped out towns or the devastation of a culture because of water droughts or the passing of comets in the atmosphere 100 years ago all have knowledge to help the future generations survive.

The survival of each generation has led to the next generation benefiting from the storytelling improving our values becoming a better society. The development of humankind is based on what we learn from the past ensuring not to make the same mistakes. Storytelling gives meaning to life for each civilization along with the ability to document historical events that would have been forgotten. The historical moments are recorded because a person’s memory can fade, documents can be lost, and the retelling of the story can lose its meaning. However, the different forms of storytelling ensure the information is never entirely lost for future generations. The human society learns from stories about religion, legends, historical events, and belief systems. There are many different races has used storytelling to keep their traditions and culture. The Africans have a rich storytelling process to keep all forms of their culture alive for the next generation. They utilize all forms of storytelling such as teaching poetry, historical journals, cultural narratives and African arts artifacts (VanZanten, 2012).

The storytelling ritual has become the staple of every generation passing on important culture events. The generations today have to determine which information is fiction and which is real. The storytelling process has play a major part in the recording of human history. The storytelling systems serve civilizations with ways of communicating, sharing information, historical events documented, entertainment, instructions, and sharing of cultures. The development of human society could not move into the future without culture being shared. The Indians used their version of storytelling to keep alive their ancestors. The Native Americans has a rich culture from the early days of the West while passing down Indian ways of life, customs, and heritage. There difference cultures that have different ways of passing down culture with storytelling such as the Asia’s using art to pass down history, Americans use the Constitution to pass down knowledge to the next generation and the Japanese use calligraphy and language to pass on their traditions and way of life.

The oral traditions of the Native Americans are a great example on why storytelling of human society is important. The American Natives were wiped out with chicken pox because Americans passed on the deadly virus that killed millions of American Natives. The tribes had to rely on oral traditions of storytelling to keep their rich tradition alive. The American Natives used oral stories, clay drawings, memorization, and tribal cultural storytelling. This is important to the human race because the storytelling is a process that helps the future generations determine what is fiction, folklore and reality of the past(Hadaway,2012). The importance of any society learning from the past relies on the storytelling from previous civilizations. The purpose of storytelling provides a roadmap for the new generation to follow avoiding the errors and mistakes of the past.

Works Cited

Hadaway, Nancy L., and Terrell A. Young. “Good storytelling brings history alive: an interview with Laurie Halse Anderson.” Reading Today 30.2 (2012): 16+. General OneFile. Web. 1 May 2015.

Harrington, Daniel J. “How much ‘storytelling’?” America 5 Nov. 2007: 32+. General OneFile. Web. 2 May 2015.

Jirata, Tadesse Jaleta, and Jan Ketil Simonsen. “The roles of Oromo-speaking children in the storytelling tradition in Ethiopia.” Research in African Literatures 45.2 (2014): 135+. General OneFile. Web. 1 May 2015.

NASA.” NASA beams Beatles: Across the Universe.” Feb. 2008. Web 2 May 2015.

VanZanten, Susan. “Introduction: African narrative and the Christian tradition: storytelling and identity.” Christianity and Literature 61.3 (2012): 369+. General OneFile. Web. 2 May 2015.