Mythology and Folklore

A long time ago, in a village by a great river, there lived a family of twelve brothers and one beautiful sister. There was also a young boy who was good friends with these siblings. Now this was a time when the earth was still waking up and the stars were just beginning to bleed into the sky. Between the twelve brothers, there was a master in nearly every skill needed by the villagers. Some were phenomenal hunters who often went to the mountains to hunt deer. Some were skilled craftsmen who made houses and canoes. Some were blacksmiths, others were scientists and mathematicians. But the boy was very lazy. While the brothers worked, he often hung around their house with the sister. She was very hard working, just like her brothers. She spent her days gathering berries and preparing the meat her brothers would bring back. Before, the boy was quite frail and nothing but bones, but thanks to the sister's kindness, he got rounder and rounder. He filled himself on the dishes of ber...

Part B of the Alaskan unit was so much more fun and interesting to read! Perhaps the creation stories from the trickster Raven were tiresome to follow, but these stories involved a lot more different animals and humans as well. They were also more romantic in nature. Many of them involved a husband trying to find a wife or other animals and men trying to satisfy their loneliness. These did not have as much of an Alaskan or winter vibe to them as the first part of the reading, but definitely felt more folklorey, in the sense that many of them worked to explain natural occurences in nature. I particularly liked the one about a boy who fell in love with a girl and tried to chase her to heaven, but is always falling behind. They became the sun and the moon, and the moon will chase the sun forever, but can never overtake her. I also like the one about the trickster fox (because who doesn't like tricksters? Or foxes?).  There was also a similar one I read in another unit about a blade ...

This week, I am reading tales of the Eskimos of the Bering Straight. At first, it told stories about the creation of man, and I was struck how similar it was to the biblical tales of creation. In this case, God was a Raven which created all the living things out of clay, but took man up to the Skyland (heaven) while the rest of men stayed on the earth. I was a bit dumbfounded how Raven was quite selfish and childish to the things he had created; he stole the sun away because he wanted men to die since there were too many, he often cheated other animals for food, gradually the Raven degraded from omnipotence to foolish carion eaters. What I enjoyed most were the descriptions of why certain animals live the way they do now. It was almost like explanations for different traits and characteristics of animals. For example, the goats live in the mountains so men do not over-hunt them, reindeers have dull teeth because originally, they had wolf-like teeth to eat men but men were able to pro...

Congo River, jbdodane. source . At the edge of a rainforest, there lived a man who made his hut a little further away from the village by the river. Every morning, a wild boar would visit the riverbank and make a splendid mess rummaging through the villagers' waste in search of scraps to eat. Day by day, the man saw the pig visit the riverbank and get more and more plump. A particular morning when the man's stomach was a bit hungrier than usual, he decided to go out and kill the boar and eat it. When the boar saw the man coming, it cried out in alarm, "My brother! I beg you please do not attack me!" Surprised at such an exclamation, the man lowered his arm and the boar took this chance to disappear back into lush safety of the greenery. Scowling to himself, the man returned to his hut. "How can I be a brother to such a creature? She lives her life in a cave or under a bush, I live on land in a dry home. She rummages through my waste for h...

Yet another gruesome adventure in the Congo with this reading. Part B of this unit had many more animals in it, but they acted like humans so nothing was too different. I was really suprised that none of the animals acted like they were supposed to. Herbivores would eat other herbivores, a turtle and a man built a city together, in which the turtle tricked everyone and ate an antelope. It seemed like the storytellers just picked random animals because they were tired of humans. Once again, it is often hard to tell who the protagonist is. Sometimes, the one you should be rooting for ends up the worst off in the end, and sometimes the person who does bad actions gets forgiven and well treated in the end. There doesn't seem to be much love between mother and children in this; familial ties don't seem very strong in the Congo tales. The fetishes play a much bigger role, and they can be granted to animals as well. As in Part A, I think the writing style was a bit too dry for me....

I was really suprised by how gruesome some of the stories from the Congo were. I found that most of them involved the relationship between a husband and wife, but always with a male at the center of it and making the big decisions. These people are not very affectionate; there were so many instances of brutal murder over petty things. This made the whole thing quite interesting to read (but only if you have a strong stomach!) Things I really noted were how some characters were born special. They were born with a fetish or a charm that protected them, even brought them back to life! Also, justice is not black and white. In these stories, what is fair or not is a spectrum. For example, someone may have had a pitiful birth, gotten wealth from a spirit, but if he was ungrateful and deceitful, he would lose it again. The reader is left a bit ambiguous who the protagonist is. Often times, it is simply a storytelling of different characters, where the plot is more interesting than the actor...

I like what I have created so far. I am especially pleased with my website; I am putting a lot of thought and effort into both the posts and the design layout, and I think it shows when people visit. I want to be proud of everything I do and I am working hard to achieve that. I think my reading notes could be a bit more specific; now that I have a clear vision of what I want to do for my storybook, I am not paying as much attention to reading notes as I did at the beginning of the semester. Also, I tend to get everything done in two sections, right at the beginning of the week and then during the weekend. Having so much time inbetween completing assignments sometimes makes me forget where I left off last, so I will try and be more continuous in my work. I think a lot of my progress as a writer has been to be unafraid of using dialogue and letting the characters some to life. Rather than a narrator saying anything, letting the characters' words and actions speak for themselves is ...

So far, I am actually quite happy with the progess I've made on my blog. The most satisfying thing is just seeing the record of my readings and storytellings thus far. Seeing just how many posts I have done is quite amazing, since I've never tried my hand at blogging so far. I changed the layout of my website to a lighter tone (it was almost all black before). I do think darker colors are easier on the eyes; we spend so much time on screens, and the blue light from it keeps the brain active and distracted, so I switched to warmer colors. It won't help a lot, but hopefully it won't strain the eyes as much. I spent a lot of time on my project website the other day and I am really happy with the layout. I want it to be interesting and engaging to the readers, something they want to read, not just required to. My favorite reading so far has been from the Laos unit. The combination of spirits with SEA people, which often includes a morale or parable, is so enchanting. I am ...