Week 11 Story: The Boy Who Became a Sheep and That's It

A photograph of the Navajo churro, the sheep that the Navajo tribe believe to be sacred.

The Tolchini, a clan of the Navajo, lived at Wind Mountains. They moved west after the young brother kept bring back food and pine boughs without rhyme or reason and the other brothers questioned his own sanity. After moving, since they had only been eating seed and grass to survive, the eldest brothers suggested that they go hunting to find food for themselves to be able to thrive and prosper instead scavenging for grass. They suggested that the youngest brother stay behind while they continued onward. After five days of no communication from his brothers, the youngest one set out on his own to find them. He camped at various caves and survived off of the land until he came across a large group of crows, that eventually morphed into Crow People that began speaking to the youngest brother in harsh whispers that terrified him. After overcoming the initial shock, he began listening to the voices and they told him about what had occurred with his brothers. They had become lost and killed 12 deer in their journey and they began telling the young brother where to go to find his family. After much walking and following their guidance, he found his brothers and told them of what the Crow People had told him. The details of their trip so closely matched the brother's retelling, that they realized that the brother had been very blessed and not gone crazy. In that moment, four ancient Gods appeared in the form of sheep and turned the young brother into a sheep much like them; however, the young brother felt no different, his form had merely just been altered. In a flash, the gods disappeared and the young brother was left in his form, a symbol of the sacred gods in Navajo culture, but no different from any other sheep. 

Author's Note: I started with the traditional Navajo story of the young boy who became a God in the form of a sheep after rescuing his brothers. I had a funny thought while reading this story that was essentially just "What if nothing else happened?" He would just be a sheep without godly powers or knowledge that improve the lives of people.

Bibliography: Judson's "Myths and Legends of California and the Old Southwest." http://mythfolklore.blogspot.com/2014/03/myth-folklore-unit-california-and-old.html

Reading Notes: Native American Stories; California and the Southwest, Part B

An ancient Native American symbol of the Coyote, a revered animal and god in many tribes.

Coyote is a major mythological figure for most Native American tribes, especially those west of the Mississippi. Like real coyotes, mythological coyotes are usually notable for their crafty intelligence, stealth, and voracious appetite. However, American Indian coyote characters vary widely from tribe to tribe. In some Native American coyote myths, Coyote is a revered culture hero who creates, teaches, and helps humans; in others, he is a sort of antihero who demonstrates the dangers of negative behaviors like greed, recklessness, and arrogance; in still others, he is a comic trickster character, whose lack of wisdom gets him into trouble while his cleverness gets him back out. In some Native coyote stories, he is even some sort of combination of all three at once. Among the Pueblo tribes, the coyote was believed to have hunting medicine. Zuni hunters kept stone effigies of coyotes as one of their six hunting fetishes, associating coyotes with the west and the color blue. Coyotes are also used as clan animals in some Native American cultures. Tribes with Coyote Clans include the Cahuilla tribe, the Mohave, the Hopi (whose Coyote Clan is called Isngyam or Ish-wungwa), the Zuni (whose Coyote Clan name is Suski-kwe,) and other Pueblo tribes of New Mexico. Some tribes, such as the Pomo, also had a Coyote Dance among their tribal dance traditions. In some of these Native American stories, the Coyote interacts with other animals, demonstrating his key and defining characteristics in various ways that also serve to explain how things came to be, like the color of quail feathers. 

Bibliography: Judson's "Myths and Legends of California and the Old Southwest." http://mythfolklore.blogspot.com/2014/03/myth-folklore-unit-california-and-old.html

Reading Notes: Native American Stories; California and Old Southwest, Part A

A newspaper clipping about the story book in which these great stories are housed.

For countless generations Native communities throughout North America have told stories about their worlds. in a time before written forms of communication, the storyteller used both collective memory and individual inspiration to fulfill one of several possible goals. Perhaps it might be to amuse or to instruct or to imagine. Some stories could only be told at certain times of the year. Others could not be told to all members of a village or encampment. But regardless of their purpose or their content, the stories mattered. They reflected values; they imparted lessons. They told how a place, an animal, a people came to be. As with the fables or songs or chants or ballads of different groups around the world, American Indian stories offered much in time to a wider audience curious to learn more about Native history and heritage. These stories, which include the ancient and the revered Coyote as their God and sacred animal, talk about creation of the earth from dust, the creation of man from the feathers of birds by the Coyote and becoming what is the known as the form of man, in addition to the story of Coyote as the main trickster, a classic trope used to portray the cunning of the coyote. Most of these source stories are from the Navajo in the Southwest and provide insight into their culture, what they value, how they live their lives, and what things these people held dear to them in harsh times.

Bibliography: Judson's "Myths and Legends of California and the Old Southwest." http://mythfolklore.blogspot.com/2014/03/myth-folklore-unit-california-and-old.html