Walking The Choctaw Road (and a personal account from my own oral history)

Walking The Choctaw Road
Stories from Red People Memory
by Choctaw Storyteller Tim Tingle
128 Pages
Fiction/Native American Studies
Cinco Puntos Press


Walking the Choctaw Road is a book filled with tales told from tongue to tongue, and heard generation after generation. Oral history and the beauty of a culture that makes the time to pass on wisdom, dreams, legends through communication, in person communication. Tingle grasps ancient tribal memories, supernatural events, and historical accounts to further the heritage of the present day Choctaw people. Walking the Choctaw Road contains eleven stories that give a glimpse into the core of the strength and desire to endure of the Choctaw people.

Tim Tingle doesn't leave out the horrors, the sadness or the tale of the journey, he embraces the devastation just as much as the victory as all being of equal importance to the generations to come. In a world of immediate gratification, I see the value in learning to wait, being patient, and not getting everything you want exactly when you first want it.

There is something magical in hearing words passed on which have endured generation after generation. I hope to someday have a chance to sit in on a storytelling, but for now I am satisfied with Tim Tingle and reading Walking the Choctaw Road. I enjoyed reading the stories, it holds and as I read I could imagine myself sitting listening to a master storyteller, with a deep voice and pacing slightly. This was a great read!


What books on Native Americans, storytelling, or oral history have you enjoyed? Is there oral history that you have felt it important to pass on to your descendants?




Personal oral history bit from my family that has passed on through generations:

The Ring

My great, great grandmother had a ring, a silver ring with a fabulous detailed setting and a medium sized diamond. She never took it off for fear of loosing it. One day after feeding her chickens she felt something was missing on her finger, and glanced down in horror to find her ring gone. It was her wedding ring and could not be replaced as it was purchased in the old country when her husband had a good job, now in the US life was much different. Immediately Grandma scavenged all over the house, swept over and over getting no dirt and no ring. She went outside where she had fed the chickens and searched for hours, she did not find the ring.

Many months later she went through the usual ritual of making a meal for her family. Grandpa butchered a chicken and she prepared the meat just as she knew he loved it most. Grandpa always enjoyed the gizzard and no one fought him for it. Grandma cleaned out the gizzard and was stunned with delight to find the ring inside! She then realized that her right must have slipped off that day she was feeding her hens and one had eaten it as chickens love anything shinny. Her second an more impacting was the second realization, that but for her husband being old fashioned and wanting to enjoy every slightly edible part of the bird, she never would have found her ring. She dropped everything and ran over to her husband, kissing him she thanked him repeatedly for giving her the most beautiful ring she had ever seen, twice.


This story is true, my mom has the ring. It is the most beautiful ring I have ever seen as well.
Do you have a family story to share?

A Spoon For Every Bite/ Una Cuchara Para Cada Bocado

Title: A Spoon For Every Bite/ Una Cuchara Para Cada Bocado
Author: Joe Hayes
Illustrated: Rebecca Leer
Publisher: Cinco Puntos Press
Awards: Land of Enchantment Book Award
Yearly Count: 19

The story of wealth and poverty, and how a little ingenuity will cause fate to turn on all. There is a rich, prideful man- who finally gets what he deserves when his less fortunate neighbors teach him what becomes of a man who is never content, yet always wanting more. The rich man tries to prove that no one is as wealthy as he, because he can use a different spoon for every bite he eats! This is a classic book on being content with what you have, and seeking for beauty in what surrounds you.

A Spoon For Every Bite is a completely bilingual gem of a book. You do not have to be bilingual to enjoy it though because on one page it is in Spanish, on the next English, so if you speak just one, you would have no problem with this book at all...but if you are bilingual this is an added bonus!! The story line would be captivating on its own, but the artwork is so incredible, that you will want to read it again and again. The faces shine with life, the gestures are so real and beautiful. The wink at eachother, or smile with pride and the whole while you can tell exactly what the illustrator has intended. It is astonishing to little and big readers alike! Beautiful, this book is too stunning to pass up!

ABeCedarios: Mexican Folk Art ABC's in English and Spanish

Title: ABeCedarios: Mexican Folk Art ABC'S in English and Spanish
Author: Cynthia Weill and K.B. Basseches
Art by: Moisés & Armando Jiménez
Publisher: Cinco Puntos Press
Yearly Count: 18

A beautifully bright book, each page displaying an original Oaxacan Woodcarving by the Jimenez family in Mexico. The whole family works through the entire process of completing each individual piece and the outcome are incredible, stylized, creatures that kids will not keep their eyes off! Every page consists of a picture of one of these Oaxacan animals, and a different letter of the alphabet. The craftsmanship would not be better, and the book itself is made with extremely high quality. Turning the pages it is so easy to see that every creature is a complete work of art.

Children love the two languages that the animal's names are written in, my children (ages 2 and 4) repeat the English and Spanish animal ABC's right along with me every time. We have had this book for a week and they consistently have chosen it and want to "say" the animals- and tell me their favourites (over and over) again! You cannot go wrong with this book, I would even use it for babies as the pages are so incredibly coloured and bright I think they would love it, but it would be easiest for my kids probably between the ages of 1-5 to be completely taken by it. It almost feels like it is sunny outside, when here in Oregon all it is doing is rain. Looking at the pages, the colours lift you up and carry you to a much brighter imaginary place.