Week 11 Reading: Myths and Legends of the Great Planes (Reading A)
Taken From: "Sacred Legend" |
READING A:
- The Creation
- Deals with tribes
- Osages lived in the sky
- Mother: Moon
- Father: Sun
- Osages were told they had to go live on earth
- The earth was covered in water
- Asked the Elk for help
- Elk called to help from the winds, which took the water upward
- Sacred Legend
- Again, the people start in the water
- We could not see, but when we first came up we saw daylight
- kind of sounds like us in the womb
- Found, land Lived next to a big body of water
- Hunted deer with clubs
- Didn't know what to do so found stone and chipped it into arrows and knives
- Eventually made fire, then learned to make a pot to cook
- Learned to make hides from their kills to cover things up and wear
- Basically described the origin of many Native American traditions
- Corn, hide clothing, arrows, axe, canoes
- The Legend of the Peace Pipes
- Made out of the feathers of the owl, woodpecker, imperial eagle and other things
- Made for keeping peach within the tribe
- When the peace pipes were made, 7 others were made by keeping peace within the tribe
- each band had its own pipe
- A Tradition of the Calumet
- The Mysterious one, the voice in the sky that the elders talk to, eventually combines the chiefs and warriors of each tribe into a council
- they smoked the pipe and there were peace and understanding amongst the many tribes
- The Sacred Pole
- Seems to be the creation story of the first totem pole
- it was made from a "wonderful" tree that would burst into flames
- They cut it town, talked to it like a human, dressed it, and said if they need anything or meet someone bad they bring their prayers to the pole, must bring gifts tot he pole
- The Buffalo and the Grizzly Bear
- Both of them fought each other, kind of for no reason
- at the end grizzly, who started it, said let's be friend because we are similar in disagreement and fights
- The Eagle's Revenge
- Eagle eating dead deer? odd
- hunter found him and shot at the eagle
- Chief said to get the eagle to have an eagle dance
- A mysterious man comes during the dance and kills people with singing and saying hi
- later realized it was the eagle's brother
- Unktomi and the Bad Songs
- Unktomi tricked geese, duck and swan into a hut
- killed them as he sang to them to keep their eyes closed
- Got away, but a mink ended up stealing the meat while Unktomi slept
- Old-Woman-Who-Never-Dies
- Sun: Lord of life
- Moon: Old Woman Who Never Dies
- 6 kids, three sons, three daughters that live in the sky
- Day, Sun, Night, Morning Star, The Striped Gourd, Evening Star
- Manages the seasons and what the animals do, so directs what humans eat
- Legend of the Corn
- Arikara was the first to find corn, showed it to the Omahas
- Found it by seeing an odd buffalo that stood and ate the corn for days, though it was controlled by a power
- thought the plant was special too
- corn, so they took it and harvested it previously
- Tradition of the Finding of Horses
- Ponca vs. Padouca
- Padouca had horses, Ponca did not
- Ponca knew the horses were coming because of the smell "Kawa"
- the wind told us kawa are coming
- Padouca eventually taught them how to ride horses
- Then they fought each other more
- The Ghost's Resentment
- Dakota died, parents made a lodge for him on a bluff
- other people in the village went to steal from the lodge to make clothes out of the skin
- young boy thought it was rude and followed them to scare them to death
- he scared them and they never bothered that grave again
- Three Ghost Stories
- Must keep funeral lights lit so that the spirits do not have to walk in the dark
- Spirits wander the roads of the milky way
- not suicide, they are no future life and they hover over their grave
- To walk the Ghost Road, one must tattoo their forehead or wrists or they are not allowed in, sent back to earth unsettled
- people sitting around the fire, found human bones at the foot of a tree from a guy singing?
Judson, Katherine B. “Great Plains: Coyote and Snake.” Mythology and Folklore UN-Textbook, 1913, mythfolklore.blogspot.com/2014/06/great-plains-coyote-and-snake.html.
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