Reading Week 10: Great Plains, Part A


The Great Plains stories that I was able to read this week had many interesting details that were associated with them. I liked how they described the world before life was on it. That it was just water everywhere – then the water would recede at the beckoning of an animal to one of the gods (or land would arise up). This supernatural sounding landscape, that would be molded before human’s eyes is an image that will probably stick with me – it’d be a good way to open some kind of creation story (or a story about the way things are).

Other types of stories that I saw during this unit included ones that described the first time the Native Americans started having a tradition. Examples of this were: smoking of a peace pipe/why they would do that and why/how a pole was to be worshiped. The stories seemed almost dreamlike at certain points, with impressive feats (or seemingly important details) would be casually brushed over. I feel like one of the most important stories to this unit was, “Sacred Legend”. In this story, Omaha Native Americans are described finding out the basic discoveries of their culture – eating game, making fire, making a tipi, and fur clothing. This, to me, gives a closer perspective to how certain Native Americans interpret their ancestors through their stories. The ancestors are seen as a creative people, who were able to problem solve their way into integral parts of their cultures.

Final story types that I enjoyed/can pull ideas from are the ones relating to animals, where they are personified (and in some cases, made human) and some insight into their behavior is given. An example of this is when a hunter kills an eagle, goes back to his tribe to brag about it, and when they start a dance a mysterious man shows up, killing 7 of them.


Peace Pipe from the Lakota People

"Myths and Legends of the Great Plains" by Katharine Berry Judson (1913).

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Introduction to Andrew

Image
Hi! My name is Andrew Barton and I am currently a senior here at OU. My major is pre-medicine/biochemistry, so obviously this class is a little out of range from what I normally am taking during the semester. Right now, being a senior, I am applying to medical school. This is definitely not an easy process, but I am almost done with the application aspects of it. If I had to choose as to what medical school I could attend, it would be OU, since this is my home and I would be absolutely privileged to serve the community, especially where help is needed most. This summer, I went on one vacation to Seacrest Beach in Florida. For the remainder of the summer, I took Quantitative Analysis here at OU. The class wasn’t too terrible – the only “bad” part of the class was that lab was four times a week from 10:30-1:20. Other than those two things, my summer was pretty relaxing. I’m involved in a few student-led organizations at OU, with the primary one being Soonerthon. I have served o...
Read more

Week 3 Story: Justice

Image
Walking up to the gleaming Palace of Three, Armistice could feel the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. No one was allowed past the white gate – what his grandfather had told him of his parentage must have been true. Armistice had a normal childhood, at least by mid-world’s standards. Living within the country had taught him the true value of things: justice, vengeance, and power – in this order, specifically, he was told how to rise up in the world, to be a representative of the place where he came from. He didn’t want to disappoint his teachers. That’s why he walked past the gate, why he was told of his relation to one of the three. Armistice didn’t simply want power to control his own fate, he wanted to control the fates of everyone around him – no one could get in his way. He was in front of the large marble door now – he could see the engravings of past revolts, with Vengeance coming down upon the masses with her fiery whip. Next to these revolts was Power, the weak...
Read more