Book reflection - Assignment Example

Perhaps Thomas King is right because after all the stories of the Old Testament still profoundly interest and shape every new generation that is born, even though the actors who had once acted out these stories and even the stage are all gone. Thus, the stories of the Native Americans continue to instil a sense of the Native American identity and culture in these people, even though, ironically, King knows that very few people know how their lives hinge on them knowing about a story. It is the stories of the past that cause the Native Americans to maintain a firm base in places, even though with the intermingling of nations and the passage of time, those who had maintained roots in a place are there no longer.

Thus, even today, a Cherokee from Oklahoma maintains a longing for the Alberta prairies, which were according to the stories, the home of the Cherokee and the border between the United States of America and Canada remains somehow artificial (King, 2003). King writes, “the border doesn’t mean that much to Native people in either country. It is, after all, the figment of someone else’s imagination”, despite the fact that the two colonial states on either side of the border completely changed the lives of the Native Americans and the border today is extremely significant.

The word “we” in the statement “The truth about stories is that that’s all we are” presents strong intra-cultural and cross-cultural connections, because perhaps the stories of the Native Americans also have some meanings for others who came from afar to live in the new land with their own stories. Thomas King writes “What‘s important are the stories I‘ve heard along the way. And the stories I‘ve told. Stories we make up to try to set the world straight” (King, 2003). Only if somehow the stories belonging to every nation were to teach more tolerance and