ABSTRACT
Anna Lee Walters’s first memories center around words, an intimate and mystical experience of the oral traditions of two tribal cultures. She sees these oral influences as central to her writing and her identity. Voices from these cultures carry the ancient visions, stories, and experiences which are at the core of Pawnee and Otoe identity even today. Through the oral tradition, past and future generations are connected. This concept holds a key position in Walters’s fiction: “My stories and other writings are a counterpart, therefore, to the voice of oral tradition and to all literature with which I have come into contact since I first drew breath. I write for tribal people more than any other group” (Talking Indian, 100).
