Storytelling - Corn

At the beginning of time, animals were the only living creatures on earth. These animals were on land, in the sky and in the water. However, one day many many years ago the first man was created and placed on earth. This man roamed the earth and found companionship with the land animals. They showed him how to hunt fish and what plants to eat.

His best friend was a squirrel who followed him everywhere he went. This man roamed all the lands, except for one. There was one area of land that was under constant cover of crows, and he did not dare to venture over there. He had found that for the most part birds were mean animals, they would try to swoop down and take his land animal friends. He was also afraid of them because he did not understand how they were able to fly in the sky and he was not.

As this man got older and grew he became to feel more confident and hunting was an easy task for him. The animals started to follow him because they felt as if he was some sort of master and superior being. He was able to create shelter when rain came and protect the animals from hard downpours. They loved this man and would risk their lives for him. He was a gently master though, and prided himself on watching out for all the animals, small and big.

One year there was constant rain and the animals were not able to hunt in the rivers for fish because the water was to deep. They had to start rationing their food because they were limited to only plants and berries. One day the first man realized that they had not seen many birds for a long time, because they did not do well when it rained. He then started to lead the animals towards the area of land that he previously did not dare to go to. After a few days of traveling they finally reach this haunted land. As the man expected the crows were not there anymore guarding it. He saw this as a perfect opportunity to finally see why they were always swarming this area.

As they moved closer they could see that it was a field of some kind, but they had never seen the type of plant before. The man finally got close enough to touch the plant and grabbed a yellow cornstalk. All the animals were in awe and danced and cheered. But suddenly all the crows flew out of the fields and into the sky. They had been hiding under the shelter of the corn fields during the rain! The crows chased the man and animals for miles to scare them from coming back onto their territory. Finally, the crows grew tired and returned to their hiding ground.

This was the first time man ever found corn.

(Corn Field - Geograph)

Author's Note: This story is based on the Tobacco and Strawberry Cherokee story. The Strawberry story is about the first time a human ever finds a Strawberry. The Tobacco story is about the first tobacco plant. This plant gets stolen and the story is about trying to get the plant back. I thought it would be interesting to create my own story that is similar to the themes of these.

Bibliography: Myths of the Cherokee, Tobacco and Strawberries, By. James Mooney (1900)

Reading Diary Continued - Myths of the Cherokee

Myths of the Cherokee - By James Mooney

The Ball Game of the Birds and Animals: The animals were very confident that they could beat the birds, and the birds were a little nervous themselves. The birds even took in some of the small animals that the big animals wouldn’t let on their team. The birds made these animals wings so that they could be on their team. The bird team wins the game, and the animals didn’t even have a chance to touch the ball because it was up int he air the whole time.

(Squirrel with wings - Wikipedia)

The Owl Gets Married: Im not quite sure the purpose of this story. A woman marries a man who she thinks will be a good hunter. He turns out to not be a good hunter so she follows him one day. She finds out that her husband turns into an owl, and that he scares off all the fish. She kicks the man/owl out of her house and the owl plucks away all his flesh. 

The Huhu Gets Married: I don’t know what a Huhu is but this was another interesting story. This has a similar plot to the story above. The wife wants a good husband who can hunt, and she marries this man who turns out to be a Huhu. Once she finds out what he is she kicks him out. 

The Snake Boy: A grandmother loves her grandson a lot. One night he turns into a scary snake and everyone is afraid of him. The grandmother goes after the snake because she loves her grandson so much and lives in the river with him.

The Snake Man: This story a man eats a squirrel and turns into a snake. There is a legend that this would happen, but the man did not believe this legend and continued to eat the squirrel. This goes to show that people should believe legends. 

Reading Diary - Myths of the Cherokee

Myths of the Cherokee - By. James Mooney (1900)

I am cherokee so I am very interested in reading some of their stories.

How the World Was Made:  This story starts off very different then the creation story, but then ends with a lot of similarities to the creation story. It starts with a beetle breaking up the ocean ground and bringing the dirt to the surface, creating land. But the land was soft and not hard. There are lots of mountains in the cherokee land. Trees, animals and plant are very important to them. 

The Journey to the Sunrise: This was an interesting story. It tells more about different tribes then finding the sun. One tribe they came across a man died and the wife was buried with her husband to die too, i though this was a very disturbing custom. They never were able to touch the sun, and they spent their whole lives trying to get there. But they did learn lot from all the different tribes.

Tobacco: I never really though about people in the past having a tobacco addiction, but this story is about this. A woman is even about to die because the tobacco is taken and she is having withdraws. Many animals tried to go get the plant, but they all failed. One small hummingbird wanted to try and everyone doubted him, but he was so quick and swift that he snuck by and got the tobacco. This is another lesson, to not underestimate people. 

Strawberries: This as a sweet story. A lady leaves her husband and intends to not come back. But her husband follows her. Many fruits and berries are placed in front of the woman but she never stops to eat them. Then she sees ripe red strawberries, these were the first to ever be seen. She then stops to eat the strawberries and remembers her husband and decides to run back home and is met happily by him. 

(The first strawberries found - Free stock photos)

Storytelling - The Toddle Family

The Toddle family is just an everyday ordinary family, or so it may seem...They do have one characteristic that makes them a bit unique. You see, this family comes from the same bloodline of ducks. While this was thousands of years ago, the bloodline still flows through their bodies even today. So what does this mean? Well, this family from the outside looks like all other human families and really they are, but they are also able to turn into ducks.

This family can decide when they want to change their appearance, which has allowed them to blend in easily with the rest of civilization. However, they often choose to live out in the countryside on their own where they can spread their wings and soar high in the sky when they freely choose.

As if turning into a duck wasn't different enough, there is even more. This family is also able to die in bird form and be brought back to life. Often when the family is living off in solidarity one of them will change into bird form and be killed. The rest of the family will gather all of the duck's bones and throw them into a nearby body of water. The next morning at sunrise the duck's bones will again become a living duck and then is able to change into a human.

Now that you know the secrets behind the Toddle family, it's only fair that I tell you who the members of this family are. The first is the grandparents of the family that go by Bip and Ronald. This couple had three children Lou, Ray, and Carch. Ray married a sweet lady named Anna, and Lou married a strong and large man named Trevor.

It has always been important that this bloodline is carried on so that this special family can continue. From a young age, the elders of the family have taught the children that the most important thing in life is to marry and create children. Ray and Anna were unable to ever have kids no matter how hard they tried. This made Ray very sad because he felt as if he was a failure to not be able to provide the most important thing in life. After Lou married Trevor, Ray didn't feel as bad. Lou was able to have kids very soon after getting married and ended up having three little boys.

Now as the boys were getting older it was time for the entire family to educate them on who their family was, where they came from, and the most important part of life. But these three boys were turning out to have more problems than the others of the family with who they are. They would often joke around about turning into a duck and never fully appreciated their heritage. The elders of the family tried their best to educate the boys and show them how fortunate they were to have this gift, but the boys usually couldn't seem to care less. With the years of their youth slowly becoming a thing of the past and the boys coming into adulthood will they ever learn to cherish the gift that they have and be able to carry on their family's blood line and bring new women into their weird and unique lives?

(A Member of the Toddle Family - Public Domain Pictures)

Author's Note: This story is based on a Native American Marriage tale , The Youth Who Joined the Deer. This story originates from the Nlakapamuk people, also referred to as the Thompson River Salish, in British Columbia. In this story there is a village of people who can turn into Deer. These people hunt each other for food and then throw the deer bones into a river and the deer comes back to life. A hunter marries one of these deer women and lives with their tribe. He learns about them and is well respected. The hunter and his wife have a child together and decided to return to his people for some time. During the time they spend with his people they teach them to always throw the deer bones into the river. They decide to return to his wife's people and the hunter ends up turning into a deer too.

I thought this was a very interesting concept so I decided to make up my own story with a similar theme, but place it more in today's world. I thought the concept of a group of people changing into another animal was really neat. I also liked the aspect of killing the animal for food and then bringing it back to life. I wanted to keep this aspect of the story as similar to the original as I could, but created a different plot line surrounding it.

Bibliography: Native American Marriage Tales, The Youth Who Joined the Deer, By Stith Thompson (1929)

Reading Diary - Native American Marriage Tales unit Continued

Native American Marriage Tales Unit: by. Stith Thompson 1929

The Dog Husband: A lady has a husband who is a dog but also changes into a human. They have children together and the wives family is really mad and kills her husband. The wife ends up having 5 dog babies, but later find out they can turn into humans also. She makes them stay in human form for the rest of their lives and they all live happily ever after.

The Youth Who Joined the Deer;

This was a very interesting story. I likes it a lot. I did not like the part about the hunter having 3 wives, and just leaving his other 2 wives even thighs he had a child with one of them. But I like the aspect of a person also being an animal, and killing the animal and bringing him back to life. I think of the idea of using all the parts of an animal and not letting anything go to waste.  After a deer is killed his bones are thrown back into the river and the deer comes back to life and changes into a human. I thought thes was just a very creative story. 

(Deer Bones - Wikimedia)

The Rolling Head:

This was a very very weird story. The wife goes swimming with a snake while her husband goes and hunts every day. The husband finally watches his wife when he leaves and sees her with he snake and kills the sale and his wife. he then feeds his wife to his children. The wives head starts align to the children and they get scared. Many other animals die and then the father gets killed by a lion at the end too. 

Reading Diary - Native American Marriage Tales unit

Native American Marriage Tales Unit By: Stith Thompson 1929

The Piqued Buffalo-Wife: There was a lot going on in this story. It has the themes of family and being good to your family. A father should always be able to identify his own family, especially his children. A husband also needs to treat his wife well or else she might leave or be taken away from him.

The Eagle and the Whale Husband: This teaches the lesson that marriage is a 2 way street. Both have to be willing and active parties in order for it to work. These 2 girls married animals and they both didn't treat them well. They tied them up and didn't love and nurture their wife. These girls eventually found ways to escape and run away.

Common theme of humans marrying animals.

The Fox Woman: This was a very odd story. A fox turns into a pretty lady and walks into a hunters house and tells him she is his wife. The hunter takes her to be his wife because she is so beautiful. The lady smells like a fox and the hunter notices. After this, the lady turns back into a fox and runs away forever.

The Woman Stolen by Killer Whales: This was a very cute story. The woman gets taken by killer whales because her and her husband caught their friend. The husband runs after her determined to save her. He makes friends with the sharks who help him out a lot, and he saves his wife. The Shark fights the killer whales so that the woman is set fee. It was odd because these water animals don't seem to be in water at all during this story.

(The Killer Whale - Pixabay)

Comment Wall

                                                  Taylor Swift - Blank Space music video

Blog Design

I might like to change the colors of my blog.



I thought that Allyson had really pretty colors on her blog.

I also liked Bailey's colors on her blog. I like the use of pictures throughout Bailey's blogs, I will try to add more pictures to my own.

I like how Ashley used a picture that correlates to what her blog is about. Our blogs are about stories and the background picture of her blog is books. I thought this was neat.

Time Management

(Time- YouTube)

This image is sometimes how times seems to me, like it is slowly getting farther away and smaller. The second half of the semester will be difficult to manage my time because I am also applying to summer Internships. I always thought that school was stressful, but applying and getting a job is even worse. 

I think that I have found a good time management system for this class now. I have utilized the extra credit assignments a lot more now because I typically have a lot more time on the weekends then school days. I will continue to not stress out to much if I miss an assignment during the week, and just make sure that I make it up by doing extra credit that week. 

I have a lot of big projects in my other classes that will be time consuming at the end of the year. I will continue to use my day planner to stay organized and to maximize my time. I also work about 10 hours a week, so I will have to continue to balance school and my job. Overall, the rest of the semester will be hard, but hopefully all worth it in the end. I just need to remember to take everything one step at a time and things will fall into place how they are suppose to. 

Storytelling - The Three Brothers Continued

Author's Note: This story is an expanded ending of a Congo story, The Three Brothers. In this story a mother had three boys, triplets, and abandoned them by a river because she was unable to care for three babies. The river-spirit fed the three boys in their early years and allowed them to grow up to be strong men. It also provided the men with women to become their wives and the men end up building their own house, multiplying, and creating their own little town. The boys father one day was wandering around and saw his three son's and ran back to the village to tell his wife. The father and mother made their way to where the sons lived but the mom was an old lady and had to stop from exhaustion. One of the brothers son's saw them on their property and ran back to the house to tell about the intruders. The story ends with the brothers planning to kill the intruder but the river-spirit tells them that the intruder was their mom and they invite her inside. I really liked this story but it ends very abruptly and left me wondering what happens. After the brothers planned on hunting and killing the intruder I found it odd that the story ends with "And they did so," in regards to letting this lady into their house. Also, what happens to the father that came with their mother to find his sons too? So here is my own elaborated ending to the story.

(The Three Brothers in the River - Wikimedia)

The three brothers had always listened to the river-spirit, for it had saved their life. The river-spirit had never led the brothers wrong. This time they really had to think about what the spirit had said about the intruder though. They had never heard about their mother and knew nothing about her. How would they even be able to tell if it was her or not? The brothers also agreed that their priority was to keep themselves and their land safe. The brothers decided to go check out who this intruder was and then make a judgement on what to do with them once captured.

The brothers went to the spot where their son saw the intruder, but she wasn't there anymore. They searched the whole rest of the day for the intruder but could not find them. Later that night the river-spirit told them again that the intruder was their mother and to not harm her. The three brothers listened to this warning but decided to continue with their original plan of hunting and killing the intruder if they saw her again.

Meanwhile, the three brother's father had gone back into town to gather supplies in order to continue their journey. The mother rested in a ditch by the riverbed to wait for her husband to return from town and sleep. The father gathered a backpack full of water and food to bring back to his wife. She wanted to have as much energy and strength as she possibly could before she met her sons.

The brothers awoke the morning after the intruder was spotted on their land and spent that whole day searching far and wide again, but found nothing. They began to blame the brother's son who saw the intruder in the first place. They accused him of just seeing an animal or something, saying that it probably wasn't even a person at all. But again that night the river-spirit spoke to the brother's and assured them that the brother did see someone the previous day, and the person he saw was their mother.

After two days of searching, the brothers decided to call it quits. They came up with a plan in case they ever had future intruders and decided to be on guard for anyone on their land the next few days.

The brothers father had a hard and long day walking back to his son's house to meet his wife. When he met back up with her they rested for a few more hours and drank lots of water and filled up on food. After this long day, they finally decided it was time to go up to their son's house. It was nighttime now and the three sons were all inside.

The father and mother finally made it to the house. The mother was very excited to finally meet her grown sons, for she had wondered about them every day since giving birth to them. They knocked on the door but no one came to answer so they knocked again. Finally the door opened and they were greeted by the three sons holding bats and hunting weapons. The sons tried to come after their mother and father because they didn't know who they were. Their mother and father pleaded for them to stop and listen. The brothers finally did so because of all the warnings given by the river-spirits.

The three brothers eventually settled down enough to let their father and mother inside.  They stayed up and talked all night about their lives and everything their mother had missed out on. She explained how she always regretted leaving them but that she was unable to care for three children at that time in her life. She told them about the sadness she had when leaving them by the river that day, and her feelings about seeing the river now all these years later. She plead for the river-spirit to watch over her three babies before leaving that day, and somehow she knew that they would.

Their mother and father ended up moving in with the three sons. They lived out their final elderly years all as a big happy family.

Bibliography: Congo Unit, The Three Brothers, By. R.E. Dennett (1898).

Reading Diary Week 7 Continued - Congo Unit

Congo Unit By R.E. Dennett

General themes: trickery, preparing food, hunger, animals. The dominant predatory animal gets tricked and killed by an animal lower on the food chain.

The turtle and the man - This story has a lot of animals deaths. It was a fairly graphic story. The turtle tricks the OX and Fox into helping him, but then he doesn't leave then with any food. The Turtle kills the OX and eats him. The fox tricks the turtle back and bites his head off when he gets close. The Fox then eats the turtle.

The Antelope and the leopard - The antelope makes a bet with the leopard that he can find him, and if he does find him that the leopard has to die. The Antelope finds the leopard easily, but the leopard tries to trick the antelope. The antelope changes into a beautiful woman and tricks the leopard into killing his other 4 wives and himself. So the antelope kills the leopard in the end, as well as his family.

The Gazelle and leopard - The gazelle eats all of the leopards food. Then the Gazelle plays drums and tricks the leopard to come dance. They then ambush Leopard and kill him.

(Leopard and Gazelle in the wild - YouTube)

The three brothers - I really liked this story, but it ended so abruptly! I might write a second part to this story and come up with a real ending. How this story ending is with the 3 brothers being told not to kill the intruder but to invite her inside because its their mother. Will they end up listening to the advice ?

Reading Diary Week 7 - Congo Unit

Stories form Congo, By R.E. Dennett

Common themes of these stories - Dreams, wives, hunger, food

How Wife's Restored Their Husband - This was an odd story, It wasn't one of my favorites. I think  I just though the weirdest part was about the three wives. In the end they restore the husband, and he eats from one of the wives bowls. At the end of the story it makes a note that it would have been better if he ate all three of the wives food in one bowl.

How Gazelle Got Married - This story has a big theme of names. I can see names being a big part of the culture in Congo possible, I like this theme. Whatever animal finds out the names of the 2 daughter gets to marry them.

Vanishing Wife - I liked this story a lot. This story starts in a dream, and that dream then comes true. A woman and house appear and it eventually becomes his wife. Her only request is that he brings her a fish every day with its head cut off. One day he doest cut off the fish's head and his wife and house vanish forever.

(Man with his fish - Wikipedia)

Another Vanishing Wife - I really liked this story also. It has a similar story line to the original, but it is definitely different also. I might write my own version on a "vanishing wife" story. I though they were really interesting. The character in this story kept wanting to please his people, even though they were never nice to him. He focuses on this more than pleasing his wife who has always been very supporting of him. She ends up vanishing and the house too.