Night Flying Woman Analysis

Passing Down Values and Traditions In the mid-nineteenth century a girl named Ni-bo-wi-se-gwe (Oona) was born in pitch darkness in the middle of the day when the sun and moon crossed paths. The book Night Flying Woman by Ignatia Broker is biography of Broker’s great-great-grandmother, Oona. It describes Oona’s life through what Broker has learned from her grandparents when they passed down the stories. In the book, one of the main themes is passing traditions on. I chose this theme because in the book, passing traditions on is major part of the characters’ culture. Passing traditions on is a practice that is important to many cultures and it effectively connects generations of people through experiences and stories.
A quote from the book
“There was a knock, and Oona turned and saw a small girl in the doorway. The child stood with eyes cast down just as Oona has stood before her grandmother. Oona said, ‘Come in, my child, and speak if you wish to do so’” (Broker). This quote connects to the theme because the small girl came to Oona to hear the stories of her people. Oona passed the traditions on to this girl and eventually it would be the girl’s responsibility to do the same. One reason why I chose this particular quote was because it shows how welcoming Oona was. Oona was reaching the end of her life and she feared future generations wouldn’t know the ways of her people because she hadn’t had many visitors to hear the stories. It was noticeable that Oona was very excited to have a visitor and share what her elders taught her. In her culture the elders customs are to keep the tribe’s traditions alive past their deaths. The elder’s do this by sharing the stories and telling them to anybody who’s interested. The quote also shows a custom of letting the elders always be the first ones to speak and looking down as these things show respect to the
In my lifetime I hope to pass down many traditions that my family has. Some examples of these traditions that I want to pass on are going up to our hunting camp the weekend before the season opener, snowmobiling, and going up to my cabin in Hayward, Wisconsin. These are among the many things that my family has done for a long time and it’s important that I continue them. Along with traditions being passed down, it is important to me that our family stories get passed down. I am constantly being told stories by my parents and grandparents about their life, funny stories, and the lessons they have learned. I think it's important to listen to these stories because they are about your family and the history. This relates to you because they can add to a part of your personal identity. A large amount of the pressure to pass down these things is put on my my brother and I, along with my cousins. We make up the next generation of our family and it’s our responsibility to keep the cycle going and educate the future generations when other members of the family can’t. naming ceremony

As you can see, passing traditions on holds importance to cultures. Oona’s culture and my own are very different but we do the same thing, we pass our traditions on in hope they will do the same. We do it so that our future families know their own history along with their ancestors. We want our children to know the stories, lessons, and traditions