Reading Notes: Reading A: Native American Hero Tales

For this week's reading, I picked Native American Hero Tales from Tales of the North American Indians by Stith Thompson. The first part of the reading only consisted of four tales. In the first tale, The Jealous Uncle, we learn about an uncle that tries to kill off his nephews when they are babies. To save one of the babies, the uncle's wife lies to him and tells the uncle that the new baby is a girl not a boy. The uncle ends up finding out that the child is a boy and not a girl. He then plots ways to kill the boy off, but the boy makes it through each test. What I do not like about the tale is that the child's parents do nothing to stop the uncle. The uncle has killed three of their sons when they were babies and then attempts to kill the only one that made it to becoming a child. This tale could be changed to have the mother, fathers, and wife of the uncle all attempt to stop the uncle from killing his nephews. Or a new tale could be created, where the aunt and mother run away with the baby before the uncle can kill them. In the second tale, Blue jay and His Companions, the tale teaches readers an important lesson about treating other kindly. In the tale, the Blue jay is mean to the Grouse and teases him, so the Grouse seeks revenge on the Blue jay. This story could be rewritten to reflect a more modern take on the moral of the tale. In the third tale, Dug-From-Ground, I was confused through the reading. I reread it multiple times and could never figure out a moral or purpose for the tale. In the final fourth tale, The Attack on the Giant Elk and the Great Eagle, seemed to actually be a tale about a hero. The hero Jonayíyin killed off the giant Elk and the giant Eagle so that they could no longer kill/eat humans. But the start of the story talks about other animals that devour humans, so another tale could be created on Jonayíyin killing off another type of giant animal.

Meme about jealousy. Source: imgflip