Extra Reading Diary: Tejas Legends

Rather than do an essay I decided to do the extra reading assignment so that I could read the other half of the Tejas Legends unit (since I only did one half earlier in the week). I really liked the story When the Storm God Rides because it hit close to home. This story detailed why there are islands around the coast of Texas. The Native Americans say they were created by the Storm God. This god had a giant bird that the Indians were scared of. One day the Storm God witnessed the Indians killing birds. He created these little islands for the birds so they could get away from man and be safe. I’m from San Antonio and it’s only two to three hours from the coast depending on where you want to go. During the summer my friends and I like to make day trips down to the beach. It is just really neat to see a story explaining how all of the little islands came about, especially since it is in an area I have been going to for years. In other stories it also discusses Spanish moss and the winds from the Gulf of Mexico. The Spanish moss gets really prevalent the closer you get to Louisiana. Once you’re in Louisiana that stuff is everywhere! I don’t think we really have it in San Antonio.  I’m glad I chose to read this unit. On my next beach trip I’ll have to tell my friends how all the islands came about;)

Map of the Texas Coastline and Native American Tribes

Storytelling Week 10: Foolhardy

There was once an old man who had little to his name but he was a good man. He lived his life to serve others but most importantly, God. Unfortunately, the man’s health was quickly failing him. He went to his church and told the pastor all about his troubles. He knew he did not have much time and was very worried about his two boys. He raised them as best as he could but unfortunately despite his best efforts, they weren’t very bright. They relied upon their father and were very cautious of all other people.

The pastor met with the board members of the church after he spoke with the old man. One member who was well endowed took pity upon the man because he had done so much for the church. He took it upon himself to repay the man for all of his kindness. He contacted the man and set up a time to meet one evening. Things however, got worse for the old man. He knew he wasn’t going to be able to make it to the meeting so he instructed his sons to meet on his behalf.

The two boys went to the location of the meeting as instructed by their father. They were spooked by a figure approaching from the shadows so one of them smashed a vase over his head. He was out cold and they feared he was already dead. They went to their father with their news. In anguish the old man realized the boys had killed the board member from church. The shock overtook him and he quickly passed from a heart attack. Due to the boys rash behavior they were subject to living a life of poverty for the remainder of their days.

Author’s Note: This is a more modern version of the story How Sickness Entered the World within the Tejas Legends unit. In the original story there was no sickness in the world. A medicine man knew it was his time to die and he was supposed to meet with a Messenger from the Great Spirit. The Messenger was going to give the man a great deal of information for the rest of mankind. Unfortunately, the medicine man was too ill to make the meeting. He sent to boys in his place. The Messenger went to the meeting in the form of a snake. This frightened the boys and they killed the snake. They reported their actions to the medicine man and foolishly thought nothing would happen to them if they left the carcass somewhere else. The mate of the snake discovered what happened and laid eggs that released sickness amongst all of the people. I wanted to put the story into a more modern setting. Rather than being plagued with illness the two boys in my story will be plagued with poverty.

The Good Man

Bibliography: "How Disease Entered the World" by Florence Stratton, from When the Storm God   Rides: Tejas and Other Indian Legends (1936). Web: Untextbook

Reading Diary B: Tejas Legends

So I skipped Reading Diary A of this week because I haven’t being feeling well. I waited until this morning to do Reading Diary B in hopes I would feel better. Just my luck, I’m sicker today than I have been! I read the second half of the Tejas Legends unit because I am from Texas so I thought it would be pretty interesting. In this unit, like many others, the Native Americans told stories to explain natural phenomena around them. This half had some pretty interesting explanations such as How Sickness Entered the World, which is pretty relevant to me right now. Sorry for keeping it so short today. I barely felt good enough to get this much done!

Current Status

Essay: Ancient Sciences

Within this Marriage Tales unit there was a common theme of marriage between man and animal. In many of the stories this was the way the Native Americans explained certain behaviors and appearances of animals because of the actions of man. For example in The Splinter Foot Girl, a young girl is married off to a buffalo. Eventually her family misses her too much and decides to secretly take her back. After the buffalo tracks them down and discovers them in a tree he and his herd begin ramming it. They lose a big chunk of their horns, thus explaining why buffalo have such small ones. In addition, the buffalo chief gets his horns stuck in the tree at one point. The people then began firing arrows into his neck to kill him. This was also their explanation as to why the buffalo were so scared of man and would run when they saw them.

Marriage between man and beast is a certainly odd one to read about in our present day society. While going through this unit the reader has to be conscious to the fact that the Native American people had a lot of respect for the animals around them. They were regarded at a much higher “status” than people see them today. The lives of animals were so intertwined with their own and each beast had certain defining characteristics. The stories told make them seem almost human like.

Ancient people used stories such as the one above to describe the actions and the appearances of the world around them. They tried to explain why things happened the way they did and these stories were logical for them. Being a science major I particularly enjoy reading stories like this. Our present day foundation for science has only built upon what our predecessors established.  It is truly fascinating to know the curiosity they had and to see what they came up with as an answer.

Buffalo

Storytelling Week 9: Foolishly Falling in "Love"

Marriage; the one thing every little girl dreams about. They envision their prince waiting at the end of the aisle. Their daddy walking them amongst all of their friends, family, and heaps of beautiful flowers. The fantasy starts early and some spend their whole lives working towards it. Two sisters in particular had set their sights on their perfect days. Both of them foolishly focused on the more material things in life. When they envisioned their ideal groom he wasn’t kind, compassionate, or particularly loving. Their main selling point was if he was handsome or not. The older of the two always saw herself marrying an actor. Someone who was truly handsome and was talented as well. The younger one wished to marry a lawyer, a handsome one of course. Both types of men could provide them with the lifestyle they felt they were entitled to.

As they grew into adulthood their childhood fantasies were never far from their minds. Both of the girls worked hard towards obtaining their Mrs. Degree. They set their sights on the ideal man and finally said I do. Their husbands worked tirelessly to achieve all their goals. The lawyer moved himself and his wife out to New York to become a partner in a big time law firm. The actor moved himself and his wife out to Hollywood so he could be closer to all the stars and the action. The girls were split up for the first time in their lives and although they obtained what they always desired things became very hard for them.

They were away from their family, separated from one another, and trapped within loveless marriages. Realization of their foolishness came far too late. When both of the sisters discussed moving back home with their husband’s things did not go over well. Things were going well for the men and they told their wives that they refused to even talk about such things. Verbally berated on a constant basis the women couldn’t handle it any more.

The sister that lived in New York called one of her brothers and begged him for his help. The sisters had three brothers and all three went into the police force. Immediately they hopped on to a plane and flew out to New York to help their sister. The lawyer knew his verbal abuse of his wife was coming back to bite him when her brothers showed up on his doorstep. They demanded that she go back home with them. With her bags packed and ready to go the woman left her husband behind and didn’t look back.

Knowing her sister was going through the same situation with her husband in Los Angeles, she demanded her brothers do the same for their other sister as they did for her. So the brothers flew out to Los Angeles and did the same as they did in New York. They showed up unexpectedly on their doorstep and took their other sister away from her abusive husband. When the two girls were reunited back home they were happier than they had been in their many months apart from one another. The sisters learned their lesson, got divorces, and vowed to never be so foolish again.

Author’s Note: This is a retelling of The Eagle and Whale Husbands that is within the Native American Marriage Tales unit. Within this story two sisters are playing on the beach with whale and eagle bones. The one with the eagle bones decides she will marry an eagle so one comes along and swoops her away. The other decides to marry a whale so one comes along and ties her to the bottom of the ocean. The two realize how foolish they had been and wish to leave their “husbands”. Their brothers eventually come along and rescue them. I put this story into a more modern sense so that it is more relatable. Blindly going into a marriage then being trapped within it seems to be a very common theme in present day dramas.

Falling in "Love"

"The Eagle and Whale Husbands" by Stith Thompson, from Tales of the North American Indians (1929). Web Source: Untextbook

Reading Diary B: Marraige Tales

The second half of the Marriage Tales unit continued on with the same ideas that the first one held. The biggest factor in this unit is the relationship depicted between man and animal. These stories are still a little off putting to me since they have sexual relationships with each other. Another component that is similar in both the first and second half of the unit is the idea of reincarnation. Both the bison and the deer would keep the bones of the dead and bring the dead back to life. This was particularly interesting in the story The Youth Who Joined the Deer. A man married into a family of deer who could change form to become human. What was so interesting about this story was the fact that the deer would hunt and kill each other for food. After they would eat the meat they would throw the bones of the dead into water and the deer would come back to life.

Big Buck

Reading Diary A: Marraige Tales

I chose to read the Marriage Tales unit for this week. This provided some very interesting readings with the primary focus being humans marrying animals. This is certainly something you wouldn’t see in present day storytelling but this was the Native Americans way of explaining natural phenomena such as why the buffalo is scared of men. A wide variety of animals were utilized in these stories. There was a bear, and eagle, a whale, and several buffalo stories. Unless I find a more interesting piece in the second part of the unit I already have a pretty good idea of what I will do for my storytelling assignment later on in the week with the story of The Eagle and Whale Husbands.

 

Why the Buffalo is Scared of Man

Reading Plan

For the remainder of the semester here is a layout of the reading units I am interested in.

Weeks 9-10: Native American

• Native American Marriage Tales
• Tejas Legends

Weeks 11-12: British

• Nursery Rhymes
• Alice in Wonderland

Weeks 13-14: European

• Brothers Grimm (Crane)
• Hans Christian Andersen

Within the Native American unit I chose the Tejas Legends because I am from Texas! I thought it would be pretty cool to read stories from where I’m from. In the British unit I chose Alice in Wonderland because I am familiar with the Disney version but not the original. In the European unit I of course had to select the Hans Christian Andersen unit because of my Storybook project. I can’t do a mermaid storybook and not include The Little Mermaid! I’m looking forward to all the stories I have left to read for the rest of the semester!    

The Little Mermaid

Reflections: Looking Forward

For the remainder of the semester I think the most important thing I can do is get ahead on my work in this course. I abuse the grace period pretty frequently and need to finish my assignments in a timelier manner. My goal is to start getting ahead in this class so that I can finish it up with an A before the end of the semester. This will be really useful when finals week rolls around so that I have one less thing I have to worry about. One thing that I am really excited about is to see how my Storybook will develop! The other storybooks that I have seen so far are coming along really well!

Goals

Reflections: Looking Back

Looking back on this semester my favorite assignments were always the storytelling ones. Some of my stories were straight retellings and not very creative. Some of them I feel pretty good about. I think my best one was probably my retelling of Adam and Eve. It was really difficult for me to find a way to be creative in retelling that story but once I got an idea it came pretty easily.

 

When I am working on assignments for this class I am typically in the downstairs area of the library. It’s not quiet but not too loud but the biggest thing that I like is the comfy chairsJ I go by a day to day basis but it would be beneficial to get ahead. I’m shooting to try and finish this class early with an A so that it is one less thing I have to worry about when finals week rolls around. Overall I’m really enjoying this class and I am especially excited about the Storybook project! From what I have seen so far from other assignments there are going to be some really creative stories.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Lets Get Bizzy

Essay: Always Wanting More

In stories and in our present day society we always see that reoccurring role of the person who is never satisfied with what they have. They are always in search of more money, a higher social standing, or the latest and greatest IPhone. The story The Stonecutter perfectly exemplifies man’s desire to always have bigger and better things.  As you probably figured the main character within this story is a stonecutter. He comes upon a glorious house one day while working and wishes he could be rich just like the owner of the house. A mountain spirit hears him and grants him his wish. After this point he became angry that even a rich man such as himself cannot protect himself from getting a sunburn. He then wishes to become the Sun, and so he does. He feels powerful for a brief duration of time but becomes angry when a cloud covers him denying his rays from shining on the Earth. He then becomes a cloud. As a cloud he is angered over the fact that no matter how much rain he produces he can’t chip away at the mighty mountain. So he becomes the mountain. One day a stonecutter approaches him and begins cutting away pieces of him. So what does he turn into next? That’s right, a stonecutter. No matter what being he was, he always saw one that was more powerful in its own way. His selfish ways kept him from seeing the cyclic nature of this so he kept wanting to be “more powerful”. He didn’t realize how foolish he had been until after he came full circle. At least he, unlike most, actually came to his senses. The Stonecutter vowed at the end to never be so selfish and ignorant again in wanting more and more for himself.

Wanting More

Week 7 Storytelling: Young Love

Over the years two childhood friends, Michael and Sarah, grew very close to one another. They met on the playground at school one day and became inseparable. In their teens when they were looking to go to college the two longed to remain together because they were in love. Unfortunately, however much they loved each other didn’t matter to their mothers. Each mother saw the potential her child had and wished them to go to a certain university for their specialty degree. Unfortunately for the two the colleges were on opposite sides of the country. The summer after graduation the two decided to run away so that they could stay together. They snuck out in the middle of the night and met up at the local park.

They didn’t have much money but they knew nothing could stand in between their love. They spent a couple of days on the move going from motel to motel, distancing themselves from home. One night they were making their way to their next stop when they were jumped by some gang members. Sarah hid behind a dumpster while Michael tried to fight them off. It was a heroic but foolish effort because he was outnumbered 3 to 1. H knew he had to protect Sarah though. Some other men walked by, saw the struggle, and drove the gang members away. They took Michael to one of their apartments so he could get some food and rest.  He was beat up pretty badly and didn’t think of Sarah as he was half carried by the men. Once at the apartment he was shown to the guest bedroom and passed out on the bed.

Meanwhile back in the alley, Sarah was still hiding behind the dumpster. The shock of such a traumatic event paralyzed her. She couldn’t even speak when the other men took Michael away. Without realizing she ever went to sleep she awoke to the sounds of traffic in the morning still hidden behind the dumpster. She had no money, no food, and no belongings. Everything the two had was in a backpack carried by Michael. Alone in a foreign city Sarah was scared to death. She walked into a nearby diner and explained her situation to the manager. He laughed in her face and kicked her out when she asked for some food.  This happened again and again for days until she was forced to dig for scraps out of the trash. She was filthy, starving, and completely hopeless that she would ever see Michael again.

She began living her life on the streets. Making it by on what she could scavenge out of dumpsters. One night when she returned to her normal sleeping spot there was a man in her spot. When the man saw her he attacked her and threw her onto the ground pressing her face into the pavement. This was the lowest of the low points in her life when she didn’t even care what he did to her or if he even killed her. Before she knew it the man was no longer on top of her. She turned around in time to see another man punching him and scaring him off. She was overcome with happiness when she saw the face of her savior. It was Michael! The two embraced and promised to never be separated again. She was taken back to the apartment he was now living in with the man who helped him so many nights ago. He was a very kind man and said he would be more than happy to have Sarah as well. She discovered that the two had been searching for her nonstop since that one fateful night. Michael and Sarah became best friends with the man and his girlfriend. They all went on to live out the rest of their days together and happy.

Author’s Note: The original story is called The Cat’s Elopement from the Lang Japanese Fairy Tale unit. In the original story the two lovers were actually cats. Their owners were so fond of them that neither would part with them so that they could live together in one household. The two ran away and were separated after being attacked. A servant of the princess stepped in and took the male cat back to her. He lived with her but missed his wife every day. One day he stepped in between a larger cat fighting a smaller one and discovered it was his love. She went back with him to the palace where they lived for the rest of their days. In the original story it followed the male cat and didn’t tell the reader what happened to the female cat while he was at the palace. I chose to write the story in a more modern context and use people as the main characters! Another big difference was that during their time of separation I detailed the female’s point of view. I wanted to show the struggles she would have encountered all alone in a different place.

Kitty Cat Love

"The Cat's Elopement" by Andrew Lang, from the Pink Fairy Book (1897). Web Source: Untextbook

Reading Diary B: Japanese Fairy Tale

I did not specify in my previous post that the JapaneseFairy Tale unit that I chose was the Lang one. Within this second half there were several stories that had a tanuki as one of its central characters. In all of the stories it never gave an explanation as to what exactly this being was. In the story The Slaying of the Tanuki, an illustration was given detailing the appearance of the beast. It was a very odd creature that possessed qualities of several different beings. Based on these stories I would assume that the tanukis were popular pieces of Japanese storytelling. In each piece they played the role of the trickster and/or villain. I didn’t enjoy this half of the unit as much as I did the first one though. With the first unit I was captivated by most of the stories. In this one I really didn’t feel that way about any of them. I guess I will be picking a story from the first half of the unit for my storytelling assignment!  

The Tanuki

Reading Diary A: Japanese Fairy Tales Unit

This week I chose to read the Japanese Fairy Tales Unit. There were only a few stories but they were all really intriguing. My favorite was probably The Envious Neighbor, although it was pretty hard to choose just one! Within this story there is an old couple who never had any children so they gave all of their love and affection to their dog. The dog never left their side and one day it discovered buried treasure. The jealous neighbor then borrowed the dog in hopes that he too would get some treasure as well. The dog instead only found bones so the man killed him. After his death the old man had reoccurring dreams in which his dog visited him and gave him commands. When the commands were followed the old man came into a great deal of wealth. The neighbor grew more and more envious each time this happened and did the same thing the old man had done. Instead of gold however he would get stinky berries, and imprisonment for hurting the Daimio. The old man and his wife went on to live a very rich life while the neighbor became hated by all those who knew him because of his wicked ways. Someone really needs to figure out what breed of dog this was because I want one!

Wise Words

Week 6: Famous Last Words

This past week was another hectic one for me. I had a huge lab practical for my Comparative Vertebrate Anatomy class so many hours were put towards studying for it. One thing that I continually catch myself doing is falling behind in this online course when I have other things going on in my other classes, such as this lab practical. I really needing to stay on top of this course rather than putting it to the side to focus on my other ones. This is going to be my goal going forth from this week.

In my last Famous Last Words post I talked about my volunteer work with Second Chance Animal Shelter. This past weekend I spent some more time with them. They had their Dog Days adoption event at Adams Park yesterday and I was out there for it. They were able to send home five puppies to their new forever homes! Yay! There were two other shelters there as well as Second Chance who got some of their dogs adopted I’m just not sure how many. It seemed like a pretty successful event where in addition to dogs being adopted they raised money through donations, raffle tickets, and other concessions. I even won a raffle prize that had a couple gift cards in it so that was exciting!

Looking forward to this upcoming week I intend on using it as my catch up/ get ahead week. I’ve been kind of slacking lately and I really don’t want to get caught in a bigger slump than what I am in right now. Hopefully when I write my Famous Last Words next weekend I will be able to say I got a lot done and caught up on all of my classes! Here is to positive and proactive thinking!

Goals

Essay: The Quest for Knowledge

A reoccurring theme throughout this whole unit and previous ones that I’ve read was the explanation of why things appear the way they do. The ancients were very limited on their knowledge of the world but they sought a greater understanding. Most of these stories have something to do with animals, nature, and the extraterrestrial structures that are observed from Earth. Being a science major makes these pieces really interesting for me to read. They prove the curiosity the ancients had and the proof that we as people are always searching for a greater understanding of the world around us.

Within this particular unit it detailed the explanation for why the fish lives in water, why the elephant has such little eyes, and why the hawk eats chickens: amongst several other things. Of course in today’s society we know these explanations are far from the truth. The story The Fish and the Leopard's Wife was the one that detailed the reason why all fish live in water. The Nigerian people believed that fish used to live on land and were best friends with the leopard. The fish grew to love the leopard’s wife and while his friend was away he slept with her. After the leopard discovered what had been done he addressed the problem with the King. The King then banished the fish forever to always live in the water. In addition, he was condemned to be hunted by animal and man alike for food.

This of course is nowhere close to reasoning as to why fish live in the water. It simply provides an interesting view as to what people thought a long time ago. These stories have no scientific backing but they provided a basis for learning. The thirst for knowledge is the first step in actually acquiring it. We owe a lot to the ancients for first starting the quest for a greater understanding of the world we live in.

The Quest for Knowledge