[originaltext]M: So Leslie, could you tell us something about yourself first?W

M: So Leslie, could you tell us something about yourself first?
W: Oh yes, of course. I was born in 1948 in Albuquerque, New Mexico, of mixed ancestry—by my own description Laguna, Pueblo, Mexican, and white. I grew up on the Laguna Pueblo Reservation, where members of my family had lived for generations, and where I learned traditional stories and legends from female relatives. My first published book is the collection of poems Laguna Woman in 1974 which draws richly upon my tribal ancestry.
M: And where do you live?
W: I have lived and taught in New Mexico and Alaska as well as in Arizona, where I currently resides in Tucson.
M: Your novel Almanac of the Death whose German translation by Bettina Munch was published by Rogner & Bernhard last year.
W: Yes.
M: Is this your first trip to Germany?
W: Yes, it is. And I am very excited to come to Leipzig because I am very interested in the transition that is going on here.
M: This interest is related to the themes of your most recent novel, Almanac...
W: Yes, you know when I began writing Almanac the wall had not come down yet. But this is very complex. First of all, back then, the people in the Philippines stopped the tanks when Marcos had to leave, and I have my character in Almanac who watches satellite television and thinks "Oh, people all over the world will see this". This is the idea of Marshal McLuhan, the global village. And then, when all these other things occurred it seemed to me that, perhaps, that’s how my character could imagine all these events. And when the big change came here I had been working and writing on that part. It was pretty amazing.
M: Most critics call you the first Native American woman novelist with your first novel Ceremony.
W: I guess that’s true. The reason I hesitate in my answer is that we in the United States have so much ignorance about our own history. There might have been some Native American woman long ago that we don’t know about. But I suppose no, I am the first. It seems hard to believe that it would take so long.
M: No one else was in print before Ceremony! If this is true, it means that you established a new line in American literature.
W: I guess so. You know I just do things and later on people tell me, "Oh, this and this!" But it was not what I had in mind.
M: But this is a great achievement for a writer. You started writing poetry, drawing from old Indian legends handed down by your ancestors.
W: Yes, when one grows up in the Pueblo community, in the Pueblo tribe the people are communal people, it is an egalitarian communal society. The education of the children is done within the community, this is in the old times before the coming of the Europeans. Each adult works with every child, children belong to everybody and the way of teaching is to tell stories. All information, scientific, technological, historical, religious, is put into narrative form. It is easier to remember that way. So when I began writing when I was at the University of New Mexico, the professor would say now you write your poetry or write a story, write what you know they always tell us. All I knew was my growing up at Laguna, recallings of some other stories that I had been told as a child.
M: So this type of education was exclusively based upon oral traditions and not on a written culture, as in McLuhan’s terms.
W: Yes, it is a culture in which each person has a contribution to make. The older you are the more valued you are, but each person is valued. The oral tradition stays in the human brain and then it is a collective effort in the recollection. So when he is telling a story and she is telling a story and you are telling a story and one of us is listening and there is a slightly different version or a detail, then it is participatory when somebody politely says I remember it this way. It is a collective memory and depends upon the whole community. There is no single entity that controls information or dictates but this oral tradition is a constantly self-correcting process.
11. Where did Leslie learn traditional stories and legends from female relatives?
12. Who translated her novel Almanac of the Death into German?
13. Why is Leslie very excited to come to Leipzig?
14. How does Leslie feel when most critics call her the first Native American woman novelist with her first novel Ceremony?
15. Which of the following statements is not true about the culture based on oral traditions?