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Ya'xotch'xolik People Telling Stories: Addressing Native Community Health Issues through the Healing Power of Stories


Hoopa, CA, 2004

Ya'xotch'xolik People Telling Stories: Addressing Native Community Health Issues through the Healing Power of Stories

Native values stress the interconnection among all things, and traditional stories are the laws and libraries of Native culture. As our community has been changed by non-Native culture, families have begun to lose touch with tribal stories that contain instructions for healthy living.

The goal of our project was to encourage healthier behavior by invoking the healing power of stories. Specifically, People Telling Stories aimed to encourage better nutritional choices, better environmental practices and waste management choices, and less violent interactions with family members.

Nutrition is a factor in two serious health problems in our community: obesity and diabetes. Because salmon is our predominant traditional food, nutrition becomes an underlying element of most of the stories about our rivers. Poor air and water quality resulting from burning and dumping trash have led to an increase in asthma and water-borne infectious diseases.

Traditional stories contain detailed instructions for caring for our Nax'tiniwhe homeland. Sadly, exposure to family violence is all too frequent in the community with severe health consequences. In our environment, physical and emotional health entangle with history. Storytelling—and listening—are essential parts of the recovery process for families, and ultimately the whole community.

KIDE-FM produced a series of interview programs to educate community members about the connections between emotional, physical and environmental health. We also collected and aired local stories to help listeners understand the environmental and lifestyle changes that have occurred in the reservation community during the past 50 years.

KIDE partnered with the Klamath-Trinity School District to encourage a story-telling renaissance in our community. We held a winter story-telling festival, broadcast stories from school events, and helped students develop peer-oriented youth radio programs.