Published:3/4/2010 7:02:26 AM
Video: Education Services taps Cherokee storyteller for outreach initiative
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| Robert Lewis,
a School and Community specialist with the Cherokee Nation Arts Institute,
tells stories on Feb. 11 to students of the Unahnti classroom in Tahlequah,
Okla., as a part of an outreach initiative. (Photo by Jami Custer) |
By Jami Custer
Staff Writer
TAHLEQUAH, Okla. – Cherokee Nation citizen Robert Lewis, although known for storytelling, uses various arts to reach out to tribal citizens as a part of a CN Education Services initiative.
Though he began the initiative in 2009, Lewis has enjoyed art since his childhood.
He grew up in Salina with three brothers, his Cherokee mother and his Navajo/Apache father.
In school, he excelled at drawing, reading and writing but rarely said a word. He said it took his teachers months to get him to talk and that when he sees people from school they can’t believe he is a storyteller.
“Even to this day I have had people who I went to school with come up and say ‘I cannot believe I am seeing you on billboards. I’m seeing you doing this. You’re running around there. You’re talking in front of large groups of people. When we were in school we couldn’t get a peep out of you,’” he said.
Lewis said he tells them “things change and everything evolves.”
Part of his evolving included training as an artist and earning an arts degree. He uses that degree teaching art classes at Northeastern State University in Tahlequah.
“I love being able to go out there and teach…anything about drawing or painting or techniques with colors,” he said. “It’s something that has been inside me ever since I was a small child. The desire for art, storytelling came later on.”
His desire for storytelling came when his dad told him his first story coming home from Arizona. They had stopped overnight in Texas and his dad asked him if he knew where stars came from.
“I was 7 years old and I said big bang theory, and he said no,” Lewis said. His dad then told him the Navajo creation story about the stars. “…it was so interesting and so fascinating. And when he finished, I had an explanation from where the stars came from, why coyotes howled, and I never forgot it.”
However, he didn’t start telling stories until he began working at the Cherokee Heritage Center in Park Hill. He said one day the museum was running behind on its tours, so he took it upon himself to entertain some teachers, parents and kids while they waited for a tour.
“They all sat down and I told them a story, and I thought that would be the end of it because I was just trying to calm them down before the tour started,” he said.
Lewis said halfway through the story his boss saw him telling the story. Once he finished, she told him she didn’t know he knew how to tell stories. Weeks later, his supervisor showed him a piece of paper that read “Come see Robert Lewis, storyteller.” After that, Lewis said he gathered information from magazines, books and Cherokee elders.
“I know 47 stories and I am trying to get as many as I can because from what I understand, like all aspects of our culture, we try to keep this knowledge and try to keep it going,” Lewis said.
Now he spends his time continuing that knowledge by traveling and telling stories.
Bill Andoe, director of the CN Arts Institute, said it’s no secret that arts in schools are suffering, especially in rural schools, and that’s why Lewis’ position was created.
“Cherokee Nation Education really felt like we needed to have a stronger presence in the schools, particularly in the arts, and so Robert’s position was created to help us do that,” he said.
Lewis said his position lets him go to schools and communities to tell stories and teach art. And though he enjoys teaching, what he mostly enjoys is the teacher-student interaction.
“When I interact with them, whether it be art or storytelling, everybody has this thirst for knowledge in them. And if you continue to feed this thirst, I believe it will branch out and get to the part where you become an extremely wholesome human being,” he said. “You have this wonderful multi-faceted brain that can hit all areas. If you can get your brain to think along those lines and see various aspects of another person’s culture or another way of looking at things, it broadens your own scope, and that’s what I try to convey to them.”
Andoe said he once went to Shady Grove with Lewis, where they were teaching young kids to mold clay objects. He said from the time they arrived to when they left, it was obvious the kids received an enriching experience and that Robert made it happen.
“I wish we had 12 more just like him,” he said.
Reach Staff Writer Jami Custer at (918) 453-5560 or jami-custer@cherokee.org
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