Week 10 Reading: American Indian Fairy Tales, Part A
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| Evening Star image on Wikimedia |
This week, I chose to read the American Indian Fairy Tales unit. This unit was the most intriguing one that I have read this entire semester. The imagery is so vivid and I can clearly picture the land the Native Americans were living on in these stories. This unit has a narrator, Iagoo. Iagoo is a favorite of the local children who come to hear his stories, and he is also the most knowledgeable person of the lands and how the Earth was made. So, many of these tales and legends are origin stories. The stories in this unit were longer, so overall there are fewer stories in this unit than the units that I had read previously.
The tale of Shin-ge-bis Fools the North Wind is interesting in that the North Wind and South Wind not simply personified, but they are actually portrayed as people. When the South Wind blows, he brings along flowers and gives life to the valleys, and he is the depiction of the perfect Indian summer. When it is finally time for him to take a rest, he goes up on a hill and smokes for a while, and all of the Earth is calm. The people know that the North Wind must be coming soon, and they are terrified and do their best to prepare to withstand him until the South Wind wakes up. A fisherman, Shin-ge-bis, is the only person who is not afraid of the North Wind. Instead, he challenges the wind, laughing at him and egging him on. Finally, Shin-ge-bis is able to draw the North Wind close enough to the fire so that the wind begins to melt and is humiliated. The moral of the story is that even the North Wind can be overcome with a joyous attitude.
The Little Boy and Girl in the Clouds is a story in which the Earth is still very young and all of the animals live in harmony with the people. Somehow, when a brother and sister are playing one day, the rock they are sleeping on rises high above the clouds. Although many animals, such as the Bear and Mountain Lion, try to jump as high as they can, their efforts are useless. A tiny Measuring Worm, though, offers his help. He is laughed at by all of the other animals, but he still takes it upon himself to climb for a month up the rock in order to show the children the path that will lead them home. This is a classic moral of not judging others who you know nothing about and doubting their abilities.
The last story of the first section of this unit was by far the longest tale. It is entitled The Child of the Evening Star. In this tale, there are ten beautiful sisters, and the first nine have already found husbands. When the last one is to marry, although she is the most beautiful and kind and could have her choice of men if she pleased, she takes an ugly husband who she knows has a good heart. A number of events take place, and it turns out that the husband is really the child of the Evening Star. They fly up to the heavens to live in his tent, and the nine older sisters and their husbands are turned into birds because of their egotistical behaviors. When the youngest sister and her husband have a child, the child becomes curious about Earth. After a mishap, the entire family is sent back to Earth where the youngest sister and her husband are made to teach the people of Earth what they know. The birds who were once the sisters and husbands then turn into the Pukwudgies, or Pygmies. So, in the end, this tale also serves as an origin story.
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