Essay: Native American Hero Tales

The unit I chose for this week was the Native American Hero Tales. I felt like the stories were all written well with description as well as their animal personas. I loved how all of the stories had something to do with animals and that they had a lot of symbolism.  For example, in the story of Bluejay and His Companions, four of the five friends give crap to one of the men, Grouse, by giving him barely any meet when they went hunting. Not only that, but the Grouse was a widow and was taking care of a child by himself. So when the men bullied him, it broke the stick on the camels back and he wanted revenge. Reading this story, it made it seem like the four men were the “bad guys” in the situations because they were picking on Grouse who he thought was their friends and was going through a hard time. For revenge, Grouse casted a spell on a wooden seal to take them far out to sea to leave them. I think putting them out to fend for themselves in the middle of the sea days away from their home land was a bit far for revenge. But when the men returned home they always remembered to give Grouse the most meat from their hunts so I guess his actions worked in his favor. Another example that involves a “bad guy” is in the story The Jealous Father, which is about a man who has two wives. One of the wives had a son that the father was very jealous of. So what makes the father the “bad guy” is when he left his son on a random island for him to die. But after risking his life during his journey home, the son burned the forest around his home as well as his father. Even though his father intended for his son to die, it was still drastic for the son to burn him alive.

Baby Weddell Seal by Samuel Blanc (2006).