The Gift in the Story

    “Why do people tell stories?” I asked the Grade 4 and 5 students.
    “For fun,” said one child.
    “Yes,” I agreed. “It is fun to tell stories, especially around a campfire. Why else?”
    “For entertainment,” suggested another.
    “Definitely. Stories are great entertainment. They can be full of adventures and magic. What might be another reason?”
    “To remember things that happened.”
    “Yes, I think that’s one of the main reasons we tell stories. Especially in cultures where there isn’t any other way of recording history. Why else might we tell stories?”
    “To teach lessons,” said another child.
    I nodded. “In fact, that’s how many cultures still teach important values – by telling stories.”

    They sat quietly at their desks while their teacher wrote their ideas on the board. It was a Thursday afternoon. Here was an unfamiliar teacher in their classroom, come to tell them a story. From my perspective I wondered if ten and eleven-year olds would consider themselves too old for storytelling. I began telling a story from India called “A Drum.” It’s one I have told many times.

A poor woman had only one son. She worked hard, grinding grain and cleaning houses for the well-to-do families who lived in town. They gave her some grain in return and she lived on it. But she never had enough to buy new clothes or toys for her son. One day, she was on her way to the market when she said to her son,
“What can I bring you from the market?”
‘A drum, Mother!’ he said. ‘Bring me a drum!’
Now one thing you need to know about this boy is that he loved to drum. He was always drumming on something with his hands or a wooden spoon—pots, tabletops, fences, tree-trunks, anything at all.
The poor woman knew she would never have enough money to buy a drum for her son. She went to the market. She sold the grain. She bought some gram flour and some salt. She felt sad she was returning empty-handed, but when she saw a nice stick of wood by the roadside, she picked it up and brought it home to her son.

The boy accepts this gift that isn’t what he wanted or asked for. He takes it with him and goes out to play. He drums with the stick on various objects. He wanders along. He meets a woman trying to light her wood-stove to make bread. He gives her the stick. She gives him some bread. Through a series of encounters, the boy meets people who happen to need just what he has to offer. At the end he asks for and receives a drum.
As I told the story I invited the children to mime with me the action of giving, each time the boy gave something away, as well as receiving, each time a new gift was given him. Together we imagined what the object felt like, what it smelt like, how heavy or light it was, how warm or cold. When the story was over, I asked them what they thought it was about. Could they sum it up in a word or a phrase?”
“Giving.”
“Generosity.”
“Listening.”
The bell rang, and off they went.
Miss Fox, their classroom teacher and I talked about what might be a good follow-up to the storytelling. The next day, she asked them to write a story of their own, modeled on “A Drum.” The only requirement was that it had to include at least three encounters where a gift was exchanged.
Two weeks later I returned. The children had written their stories and were now creating shadow plays, working in groups of three or four to tell some of the stories with sound effects. She planned to film the final versions.
One of the boys, A. J., showed me his story on the computer. “The Didgeridoo” follows a similar plotline as “A Drum”, with the main character receiving gifts and passing them along to people who need them. But at the end, like the boy in the Indian folktale, A. J.’s character isn’t afraid to ask for what he wants. Miss Fox told me that A. J. had gone home after hearing “A Drum” and told it to his mother, remembering each episode in the narrative. Next he told his mother his own version, which he’d been thinking about on the way home. After telling it he wrote it down. He was excited to have found a way of creating something of his own that started with telling a story out loud.
That’s the magic of oral storytelling. It bypasses the written word, and therefore it’s more direct and more intimate than lines on a page. In many ways, the storyteller is part and parcel of the story, for it is his voice and presence that shape it. But those who are listening also shape the story because each listener will remember it in his or her own way. It may have started as text in one form and it may end up as a text in another form. But in the gift-exchange of the story, the lesson of generosity is clearly present: This story you’ve just heard is now yours to give away. It may be just what someone needs.