Textual unification in a community of Native American storytelling voices

This article explores the centerpiece of contrast between the dominant American and Native American tribal societies – the interaction of individual and group in maintaining community. While Western paradigms of personal development focus on the individual – a model consistently reflected in the most popular Western narrative structures, Native Americans prefer a support group as a center for individual development. In extreme forms, statements about this social phenomenon can become ethnocentric and stereotyped. Ethnographic observations confirm this difference in social systems, but sometimes specifically question stereotypical interpretation. Our analysis leads us to the conclusion that instead of necessarily including an individual in a group, American tribal society can value both group and individual.