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.
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