Mythology and Folklore: Week 9: Reading Diary A

There was a woman whose brother was known as "Unnatural Uncle."
He was called this because he killed two of his nephews. One day the sister was pregnant and Unnatural Uncle's wife came to warn her. They decided that if she was to give birth to a son the wife would lie and tell him that she gave birth to a daughter.
She raised her son to act like the girls so that the uncle would never know. However, one day the uncle found out he was a boy and took him to gather wood.
He took him to a large log, cut out a piece and then trapped the boy in the tree and left him to die, but the boy escaped. He brought wood to the uncle and went home. The uncle only wanted to kill him even more.

Giant animals preyed upon people including the Giant Elk and the Great Eagle.
One day, Jonayaíyin the deliverer was sent to them.
He was told the Elk lived in a great desert far to the south and gave him arrows to kill the elk.
He found the elk lying in an open plain with no trees he could hide behind. Then the lizard came and asked what he was doing and told him to where the garments of the lizard. Then the gopher told him to burrow his way to the Elk.
The gopher made a burrow to him and began to gnaw the hair of the Elk. The Elk asked what he was doing and the gopher said that he needed that hair for his children to sleep on.
The gopher then told the boy to go through the hole and shoot the Elk in his exposed heart.
He ran through the earth and plowed the land leaving use the current mountains.
The Elk then died and he made a coat from the elk hide.
He then wanted to kill the eagle, I-tsa, and was told it could be found in the West.
He made it to the Eagle's nest and was carried to the nest by the eagle.
He then killed the mother and father eagle and took away the young eagles power.

(Elk found on Pinterest)

Mythology and Folklore