Creation Stories
We were going to do an episode of Crash Course Native American History on creation stories. We had it filmed and everything. But ultimately, here's why we decided not to make it.
We hope that sharing this behind-the-scenes not only gives you some insight about our creative process and the sincere effort we put into researching this series, but also about Native American culture and history!
Comments (8)
Well dang; now I _really_ want to know what those creation stories are. Like, are they still fiddling with the universe's parameters?
There was a previous CrashCourse that covered creation stories from all around the world -- I recall many of them started with mud. Perhaps you could link to that to give people an idea of what the American stories might have been like. Though I can think of a reason you might not want to do that... I can't now recall who was and wasn't covered.
There are 5 episodes on creation myths in Crash Course World Mythology: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL8dPuuaLjXtNCG9Vq7vdvJytS-F-xGi7_
HUGE respect
Thank you for this explainer video. I teach US history and this series is helping me fill a gap in the perspectives my students gain on the past. One of the things they learn is how historians over time have learned to value oral history just as much as we value written history. I encourage students to value the diversity of stories we can find in the past, and this video would help spark an enlightening conversation about the ethics of studying history: Who gets to tell whose stories from the past? When I copy the share link into an incognito browser window, I'm required to log in to Patreon before I can watch it. While I would love for my students too to become Patreon members, it's more important that their access to course content is frictionless. Can you share this video on your YouTube channel too so that it can be more broadly available?
We don't upload shorts on our YouTube channel, but we did post this video on our social accounts, if that's easier: https://www.instagram.com/reel/DLVLZIrxukB/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link&igsh=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==
Interesting reasoning. Isn't there a difference between "performing the history" in a traditional way, versus sharing the context and content of the history? In pedagogy, we have always had commentary on a practice or custom be separated from the custom itself, so not sure we should perceive explaining some custom as being insensitive
Crucially, our perceptions aren't the important ones when deciding the go/no go on whether a planned project respects a culture we don't personally or officially represent