Healing and Storytelling

There is an apocryphal story about an anthropologist who leaves a television in a village in Africa. (We can presume that the village either has regular access to electricity or a generator.) For a while the community gathers around the talking box with great interest. But when the anthropologist returns some months later he finds his gift covered in dust and cobwebs. He asks the villagers why they haven’t been watching it. One of them replies, “Your box knows many stories, in fact many more than our storyteller, but the difference is, our storyteller knows us.”

This comment can be read and understood in a couple of different ways: the village storyteller knows what kinds of stories are most relevant and familiar to her listeners. She knows when and what to tell. Like a mirror, she reflects back to them their own world and their own history, as well as their own potential as moral agents. She sees who they are and she sees who they can be.