Bassett & Avalos/IRT5M, 72. How are Indigenous narratives and oral traditions like “texts?”

It is important to first establish what a “text” is. Many people tend to think of “texts” as only written or printed materials that need to be decoded into something that approximates spoken language, such as “reading” the “text” of a novel. In the analysis of human cultural production, however, any collection of symbolically meaningful things can be a “text,” such as a dance, a painting, a film, or even things like buildings or vehicles. The chapter explores differences between oral and written texts and the performative nature of oral texts.