Reading Notes : Heroes, Part B

This second unit of this reading focused much more on humans and their relationships, especially those between father and son. I noticed that there is a lot of competition between males in Native American stories; many time an older male will try to banish or kill a young up-and-comer. They are often jealous of their youth and very protective of their women and resources. But the young male hero always emerges victorious in the end, much from the help of a female that also wishes the old male to fall. There are often mystical powers involved, including enchanted animals, spirits, witches, and even the earth and skies itself taking part at times. Earthquakes, thunderstorms, giant storms at sea are all fair game.

I was not as engrossed with the writing style as I was with Part A. These stories focues a lot on actions only, and it seemed a bit dry at times. Without as much dialogue it was hard to get attached to a character, since you couldn't tell what his personality was like. Also, there were really weird things that happened that kind of threw me for a loops. A particularly gruesome one was when a witch cut open a pregnant woman, threw her twin boys away, stuck a stick through her body and set her upright so her husband would think she was alive. She also burned the woman's lip so that it looked like she was smiling. How the husband couldn't tell right away she was just a corpse beats me. Also, apparently she can wake up right away when her sons (the ones from the womb) tell her her hair is falling out, so there's that too. Despite some gorey details, this unit, with all of its gruesomeness, was a pleasure to read. I loved all the animal/human interaction from Part A, and I already have some great ideas for storytelling.

Cree Man. Photo by G. Fleming.

Tales of North American Indians. Stith Thompson (1929). Web Source.

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