The process of narrating one's memories is both recanting history, and constructing history. The narrator of a memory or the teller of a story constructs a history even while attempting to remain faithful to the original events.

Art Spiegelman, in Maus, realizes the influence that he inorexably wields over his Father's narative and attempts to make the reader aware of this "corrupting" power.

As Blanca Ruiz says in her Listeners:

He attempts to tell his father's story, his history, and the history of many others, through an unconventional manner. Yet he must learn to listen to his father's story, both linearly and nonlinearly, so that he may produce A Survivor's Tale.

Thus, Spiegelman includes in his work a self-consciousness of his powers of historical construction. He realizes that the story he passes on to the reader is not the same story that his father told him. It has been changed in ways subtle and unsubtle so that it is no longer truly historically accurate.

The power of the storyteller over history is a major theme in Silko's Ceremony. Tayo's search for personal healing leads him to examine the stories of his people. He searches for healing in the stories that have been passed down from generation to generation among his people. These stories do not aid in his healing, however, until they are reconstructed into a new form by Old Betonie. In this way, Silko legitimizes the powers of historical construction that the storyteller possesses.

The culmination of the power of the storyteller, in Ceremony, comes in the story that Tayo tells to the tribal elders at the conclusion of the novel. Tayo's story marks the beginning of a new, more prosperous era for the Laguna people. His story is not entirely new, however. It is simply a reiteration of the ancient stories of his people, with the added information of the observations that he has made. the tribal elders recognize the historical aspects of Tayo's story as well as the significance of these aspects to the Laguna people's current situation. They respond:

A'moo'ooh! A'moo'ooh!/ You have seen her/ We will be blessed/again.

Tayo's role in the survival of his culture through his power as storyteller is representative of oral tradition in general. Every generation passes the stories to subsequent generations, often with changes made for the purpose of annealing the stories with the stresses and challenges of the current age. Thus the stories both preserve the history of the culture, and allows for a continued genesis of tradition. Blanca Ruiz notes this preservation of history and creation of tradition in her Listeners:

Storytelling preserves a history and creates a tradition, often forgotten if it is not passed on and continued. Consequently, the listeners become tellers; they must tell the stories which they have heard, and therefore complete their portion of the web.

In the process of oral history, everyone in a listener and everyone is a teller. The power to construct history, to add on to the constantly changing narrative, assures the viability of the traditions and consequently strengthens the culture.

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