How did you learn what good behavior looks like? Did your parents sit you down one day and explain it to you? When you were younger, you probably had a fairly short attention span―most children do, so you weren’t likely to listen to a long, serious lecture about etiquette.
Throughout human history, adults have had to get creative about helping children learn the ways of their people. Watch this video about a character in a book of fairy tales belonging to the Ojibwe, a Native American tribe living in the Midwestern United States.
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There never was anyone so wise and knowing as old Iagoo. There never was a person who saw and heard so much.
Iagoo knew the secrets of the woods and fields, and he understood the language of birds and beasts. All his long life, he had lived out of doors, wandering far in the forest where the wild deer hide or skimming the waters of the lake in his birch-bark canoe.
Besides the things he had learned for himself, Iagoo knew much more. He knew the stories told to him by his grandfather, who had heard them from his grandfather, and so on, away back to the time when the world was young and strange, and there was magic in almost everything.
Iagoo was a great favorite with the children.
No one knew better where to find the beautiful, colored shells which he strung into necklaces for the little girls. No one could teach them so well just where to look for the grasses that their nimble fingers wove into baskets.
For the boys Iagoo made bows and arrows―bows from the ash-tree, that would bend far back without breaking, and arrows, strong and straight, from the sturdy oak.
But most of all, Iagoo won the children's hearts with his stories.
Where did the robin get his red breast?
How did fire find its way into the wood, so that a person can get it out again by rubbing two sticks together?
Why was Coyote, the prairie wolf, so much cleverer than the other animals; and why was he always looking behind him when he ran?
It was old Iagoo who could tell you where, and how, and why.
Who is Iagoo, and what does he mean to the children in his life? Use these questions to review the video’s key ideas.
What do the children in Iagoo’s village love most about him?
The children love what Iagoo gives them and teaches them, but they love his stories even more.
The children love what Iagoo gives them and teaches them, but they love his stories even more.
The children love what Iagoo gives them and teaches them, but they love his stories even more.
Where did Iagoo the storyteller get his stories?
Iagoo’s stories had been passed down through generations.
Iagoo’s stories had been passed down through generations.
Iagoo’s stories had been passed down through generations.
Which word best describes the role that Iagoo has in his community?
Iagoo tells stories to the children in the village to share what he knows with them.
Iagoo tells stories to the children in the village to share what he knows with them.
Iagoo tells stories to the children in the village to share what he knows with them.
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