Week 10 Reading Notes: California and the Old Southwest Tales (Reading A)

The Creation of the World 

1. Three Coyote Creation Stories
• Tells the end of the story at the beginning 
• coyote started the creation, eagle finished it
• Coyote and fox created man 
• Coyote brought fire 
• Rely heavily on animals for earth's creation 
• New story could be "If Dogs Created the World"
• waterways were created from Indians crying over those who died  
• Coyote seemed to save and fix a lot of earth's beginning problems 
2. The Creation of the World
• Earth doctor is responsible for creating the earth, sun, moon and starts 
• only discusses earth creation not the creation of people 
3. Spider's Creation
• Spiders were the only living creatures at one point 
• Spider sang for a long time and created two woman first then animals followed 
• then the two women (the two mothers of all) created the moon and sun and were leaders of people and the other of different nations
4. The Great Fire; The Origin of Light
• Coyote is responsible again, saved the world from a fire that ruined everything 
• Turned two boys into women and men and the world was fixed 
• The Coyote created something for the hawk to light in the sky because animals were bumping into each other all over 
5. Creation of Man
• All animals went into the creations, took aspects from animals but dulled them
• All came up with an idea, but coyote ruined them and put life into his before others
6. Old Man Above and the Grizzlies
• Grizzlies found and married Little Daughter, made a new breed of man aka man
• They used to walk on two feet, could talk and carried a stick
• When Old Man found out about Daughter he came and punished the bears
• That's why bears walk on four feet looking down 
7. The Creation of Man-kind and the Flood
• First creation earth doctor made he destroyed 
• men and woman took over and he could no longer feed them
• Made a huge flood that not many escaped 
• Not much different from the other floods mentioned
• Mixture of Noah's ark 
8. The Great Flood
• The flood rose to the top of the mesa's, which just created the land and the coast 
• so the ocean 
• Had to create a door for all to make it to the top, had a sack of stars to hand out 
• someone took a peek and then the stars burst out and fell into the sky 
9. The Fable of the Animals
• Man awarded all animals with a length of bow that matched their power 
• Coyote wanted the longest so he stayed up all night to meet with man
• fell asleep and missed it, longest bow to cougar and shortest to frog
• Man felt bad for the coyote and gave him a large bow, so coyote was kind to man and did a ton of them 
• hence why coyote has had such a big role 
10. The Course of the Sun
• The spider plotted out the path of the sun
• Spider stopped at breakfast lunch and dinner to eat, so the sun stopped
• Then the sun did it himself and each time it stops it is answering the spiders questions of:
• how many people died, lived and how are they doing 
11. The Theft of Fire
• Coyote stole fire from men 
• ran and relayed it between animals, the 2nd to last was the squirrel 
• the fire burned his back giving him the black lines on its back
• gave it to the frog after and "hags" pulled its tail off (no tail) 
• so the frog swallowed fire and went under water 
• The frog then spat the fire onto driftwood, which is how you can make fire out of two pieces of driftwood 
12. Coyote, Tortillas, and Mesquite Beans
• Woman tricked coyote into drowning over tortillas 
• Coyote ate mesquite beans after he wasn't supposed to, and they expanded in his stomach and killed him