Week 10 Reading Diary, Continued: Native American Hero Tales

Reading diary continued for the Native American Hero Tales unit. Story source: Tales of the North American Indians by Stith Thompson (1929).

Lodge-Boy and Thrown-Away
This was a really weird story. In the beginning a witch killed a woman and took her two babies out of her stomach throwing one in the river and one behind the curtain in the tipi. The father found the one in the house and raised him, then the two of them got the other one from the river. The boys became rebellious but also heroes; their father kept warning them of dangerous things that existed that they should avoid but each time the disobeyed and found the thing or person and killed it or destroyed it. I found myself saying how many more times will this happen... how many more times will this dad tell them not to do something knowing they will do it. Then, I didn't see much of a point to this story; especially because in the end no death or harm ever actually came to the boys and instead they lived happily forever as heroes. This story had some very weird things happen.

The Son-in-Law Tests
The title of this story definitely gives away what it was about. A father kept killing all of his daughters husbands by tricking them into doing tasks or they lost in competitions and were killed. All he killed except for one who kept beating him at the tasks or outsmarting him. They probably did around 10 different things, all very concisely told but again I was annoyed at how many there were. Finally the father-in law was killed out on the ocean by the son in law calling up the waves. Some weird aspects were in this story as well, the son had to pick and eat lice from the fathers head, etc.

The Jealous Father
Another story involving someone getting left somewhere while the other person paddled away in the canoe. Also another story where people transform between birds and people, it sounds like native Americans really have a strong connection with nature and especially birds. A man had two wives and one gave him a son. But this son fooled around with the fathers other wife so the father left him stranded on an island. A walrus rescued him and took him to the main land. The father sent lightning and other things to harm him but his mother sent the walrus and things to help him. He eventually made it back and he caught the forest on fire and made the sea boil. He burned up his father and saved his mothers. Then they decided to become birds, the son became a whiskey jack.

Whiskey Jack

Dirty-Boy
The sun and the star of the sky looked upon a village with 2 beautiful girls of the chief who rejected all their suitors. The sun and star decided to go down to earth and see what the two women were about/if the sun could marry them. They made themselves a poor persons hut and the sun became a dirty, sick boy, the stars his old grandmother. The chief had two competitions for his daughters suitor and dirty boy won them both. Finally the chief gave the daughters to him. The eldest disobeyed and married a raven man. The youngest tended to the dirty boy for three days, then on the fourth day the sun and star took on their true form and made a beautiful home, become young and healthy and handsome. The bride was pleased and they lived happily. He gave her stars on her body like they had.