The Landscape of Storytelling in Native American New England

This is an excerpt from The Mayflower by bestselling author and historian Nathaniel Philbrick. In it, Philbrick describes how, when Europeans first landed in New England, the earth was visibly filled with stories...

"As they conversed with their new companions, the Englishmen learned that to walk across the land in southern New England was to travel in time. All along this narrow, hard-packed trail were circular foot-deep holes in the ground that had been dug where 'any remarkable act' had occurred. It was each person's responsibility to maintain the holes and to inform fellow travelers of what had once happened at that particular place so that 'many things of great antiquity are fresh in memory.' Winslow and Hopkins began to see that they were traversing a mythic land..."

Imagine a child (your child) walking through a landscape (your landscape) as thickly vined with story as a New England forest. At each resting spot - a tree, a bench, a particular shrub or crack in the pavement - your child recognizes the story you told last week, last month, or last year. For such lucky children, the entire world is teeming with meaning.

The Storytelling Loop is a newsletter bringing you tips, science, and real-life examples of how storytelling builds the connection between parent and child. It is a joint project of Silke Rose West and Joseph Sarosy, the authors of How to Tell Stories to Children.