Week 9: Extra Reading

For my extra reading I chose the Sioux Legends unit.

The Rabbit and the Bear

• A rabbit was with his grandmother were looking for materials to make arrowheads to kill game. This is confusing because aren't rabbits considered to be game? 
• He was told he could only get flint from the old bear chief. 
• The rabbit traveled to the village of the bear chief and smoked with him. He asked for flint and the bear chief removed his robe and half of his body was made of flint and the other half flesh. 
• The chief told the rabbit to strike off some flint from his body, but not too hard. As a result, rabbit was careful and the struck the flint lightly. The bear chief kept telling him to get a bigger piece and then the rabbit hit him so hard that the bear chief split in half and died. 
• This upset the bear village and they chased the rabbit, but he called for more snow and the bears could not move as swiftly through it. The rabbit then turned around and killed them all with his club and that was how they explained so few bears in the forests. 

(The face of a true killer found on Pinterest)

The Boy and the Turtles

• A boy went looking for turtles and believed he could only find them at the lake his tribe always found them. 
• The boy hide from the view of the turtles so that they would not see him and run into the water. He was taking off his shirt and his hand was just high enough that the turtles saw it and hid in the water. 
• The boy ran to the lake to try and catch a turtle, but he saw nothing. Then all of a sudden hundreds of little men rose from the lake and began to splash the water. This was terrifying of course and the boy ran home and left his clothes. 
• He told his grandmother and they sent warriors to see if it was true and they saw little men splashing in the lake. From that moment on they called the lake, Man lake. 

Week 9: Reading Diary B

I read the Native American Hero Tales

The Son-in-Law Tests

• Wemicus (the animal trickster) had a son-in-law that always outwitted Wemicus. 
• One day they were in camp and Wemicus told the man that they called the lake burnt moccasins lake. The man knew that Wemicus would try to burn his moccasins in his sleep, so he switched their moccasins. Wemicus then had to walk in the snow without moccasins. 
• Wemicus told the man to come sliding with him, but his wife warned him the hill was covered with poisonous snakes. She gave him a stick with a magic tobacco that would prevent the snakes from hurting him. 
• His wife then told him that Wemicus would ask him to pick the lice from his head, but they would be poisonous lizards. He fooled him by cracking cranberries instead of the lice. 
• Wemicus then wanted to race him on a canoe and Wemicus went to fast and flipped in the lake. The man went up to where he landed and saw that Wemicus had been transformed into a pike and this is where they come from. 

The Jealous Father

• Aioswé had two wives and he became jealous of one his sons. One day he came home and found that his other wife had been intimate with the son.
• One day they went to an island to gather eggs together and the father left him on the island. 
• A walrus found him on the island and said he would take him back to the mainland. The walrus asked if the sky was clear, but the boy lied and they headed to sea. The walrus then said to warn him if he heard thunder and when it came the boy lied again. The walrus left him in a shallow part of the sea, but was killed by lightning. 
• An old woman found him on the shore and instructed him how to arrive home safely and gave him the stuffed skin of a weasel. 
• Then two blind women tried to kill him with dagger elbows, but he tricked them into killing each other. 
• When the boy made it home he sang at a fire how he would make the world burn and cause the water to boil. He shot an arrow and the forest began to blaze and the water boiling. He told his father to hide in his bear grease and he drew a line around him and his mother. They were the only survivors and his mother transformed into a robin and he a Canada jay. 

Robin found on Pinterest

Week 9: Reading Diary A

This week I read The Native American Hero Tales

The Jealous Uncle

• 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. 

The Attack on the Giant Elk and the Great Eagle

• 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)

Week 6 Storytelling: Observations of Mr. Yamato

                                                         Observations of Mr. Yamato

Patient # 4002

Date: August 25, 1917

Observations: To protect the confidentiality of the patient I will refer to patient number 4002 as Mr. Yamato. Yamato has suffered fits of extreme delusion during his time here at the Tokigama Psychiatric Facility due to severe schizophrenia. I fear that Mr. Yamato has lost all sense of what is reality and fiction in his mind. I will describe any events that Mr. Yamato experiences in this journal.

(Psych Ward on Pinterest)

Date: August 30, 1917

Observation: While Mr. Yamato was roaming the halls, he saw another patient violently grab one of our nurses, Yoko Himata. Mr. Yamato insists in telling the story as Ms. Yoko being a princess known as Tacibana that was kidnapped by a group of bandits and taken hostage. He declared his love for the princess and gave details of how he slew the bandit that took her hostage. However, the true actions of Mr. Yamato were that he called the guards and they handled the situation peacefully. It is interesting to see how his delusions are progressing steadily each day.

Date: September 2, 1917

(Nurse found on Pinterest)

Observation: Mr. Yamato's condition is progressively declining and his ability to differentiate between reality and fantasy is fading. Today, the nurse Yoko that Mr. Yamato insists is truly the Princess he calls Tacibana took his vitals as usual. Mr. Yamato was not interested in talking with the nurse today, but he heard the yells of another patient down the hall that calls for help out of a desire to seek attention. Mr. Yamato was transfixed by this patient’s voice and insisted that she was in fact a siren calling his name. On September 2, Mr. Yamato left his room and travelled throughout the psychiatric ward in search of the patient calling for help. When he had at last found his “siren”, she asked him to bring her the medications that would help her. Mr. Yamato accepted this mission and believed that he was indeed searching for a “golden apple of immortality.” I can honestly say that Mr. Yamato has lost all sense of where he is and does indeed believe that he is on a heroic quest.

(Siren found on Pinterest)

Date: September 15, 1917

Observation: Mr. Yamato searched that day for medications, but every hospital employee that he asked refused to help him and directed him back to his hospital room. One of the other residents, named Goku, told him a story of a man that had made his way to the island of paradise full of golden apples, which in reality was the pharmacy.

Date: September 22, 1917

Observation: Mr. Yamato’s seemingly harmless delusions have now begun to become physical. Today, Mr. Yamato attacked a male attending nurse with a pair of scissors, cutting his stethoscope and he came to check vitals. Mr. Yamato shouted at the nurse calling him a demon boar and after cutting the stethoscope Mr. Yamato screamed in victory that he had slain the boar by cutting his tail. I fear that the medications we have given to Mr. Yamato have only worsened his condition.

Date: September 24, 1917

Observation: Mr. Yamato awoke in his hospital bed with a burning sensation throughout his entire body. He began to go into cardiac arrest and our medical team swarmed into the room to help him. Mr. Yamato screamed about a fire taking place in a field surrounding him and screamed as any employee touched him that he was being trampled by hundreds of deer. However, the nurse Yoko or in Yamato’s eyes Tacibana came into the room and gave him an injection of morphine. Mr. Yamato thanked "Tacibana" for bringing him the weapon needed to counter the fire and for saving his life.

(Morphine found on Pinterest)

Date: December 1, 1917

Observation: Days have passed without an incident, but today while Yoko was tending to Mr. Yamato he heard the cries of his “siren.” Mr. Yamato asked Yoko to leave him alone for a little while, but as she turned to leave he had swiped her keys and ID card. When he was alone, he travelled to the pharmacy and found a pharmacy technician who was just entering the pharmacy. He tied up the pharmacy technician and took with him a large amount of morphine and oxycodone. Upon questioning the technician remembered Mr. Yamato asking, " where is my sacred sword!" A visitor witnessed Mr. Yamato approach the door of his “siren” and show her his “sacred sword.” The "siren" tricked him into opening her door and she then stole his “sacred sword” to fuel her drug addiction and locked him in her hospital room. We found Mr. Yamato in the room and let him out of the room and discovered what happened. We locked down the hospital in search of the patient, but Mr. Yamato found her hiding in a storage closet. Mr. Yamato took the medications from the patient and reported her location to the guards, and upon his arrival the guard heard Mr. Yamato shouting, "I have recovered my sword and destroyed the demon deer." Mr. Yamato has given this patient two separate and unique identities of both the "siren" and "the demon deer." 

Date: December 12, 1917

Observation: Mr. Yamato was placed under surveillance since the incident that took place on December 1.  However, on this day he managed to escape his room in search of the "siren" that had deceived him. He was armed with a pair of scissors and witnesses recall hearing him muttering that he would slay the “siren.” Before anything happened Yoko stopped Mr. Yamato and he openly praised her for saving him from the "siren’s" grip. He awoke in his hospital bed and looked for Yoko, but she was nowhere to be found. The patient in the room next to Mr. Yamato recalled hearing Mr. Yamato screaming that a dragon had attacked his kingdom and he went to search for the dragon. I saw Mr. Yamato in the hall and asked him what he was doing, but based upon his physical agitation, rapid breathing, and perspiration that covered his body I knew there was going to be trouble. Mr. Yamato lunged at me screaming that I was the dragon controlling all of these evil deeds and stabbed me with the scissors in the arm. The guards tackled Mr. Yamato, but he was screaming in victory that he had slain the dragon. When we brought him to his room, we discovered the appalling truth that he had slit the throat of Yoko at the beginning of his psychotic break just before attacking me. However, Mr. Yamato will forever believe that his princess Tacibana sacrificed herself to save him from the grasps of the dragon. We then sent Mr. Yamato to a psychiatric facility in a high security prison where he will live the rest of his days as Yamato, unaware of the pain he caused in the real world.

(Solitary confinement found on Pinterest)

(Scissors found on Pinterest)

Author's Note: This tale is based from the Labors of Yamato, but I chose to place a wonderful twist on the story.  I chose to follow each individual tale in the same order, but chose to make the tales a hallucination of the doctor's patient. I believe that this is an interesting way to portray the story and can bring about a different interpretation of mythological tales.  This tale originally contained the hero Yamato who saved a princess and married her soon after. However, he began to be bored and craved adventure. He travelled by sea to another land and that is when he met the siren. She called to him and sent him on a quest to find the golden apple of immortality. A man told him where he could find this apple by a stranger and then set on his way to get it. Throughout his quest he defeated a demon boar and was trapped in a fiery field, but his princess saved him by bringing him his sacred sword which he used to create a counter-fire. He then traveled to the siren and told her that he could not find the apple, but she tricked him and stole his sacred sword for her father, the god of the sea. Yamato found his sword, took it back, and killed the siren's father who was in the form of a dragon. However, after defeating the dragon at land he was at sea and he angered the god of the sea. He was going to destroy their boat, but the princess sacrificed herself to save Yamato.


Bibliography: The Labors of Yamato from Romance of Old Japan, Part I: Mythology and Legend by E.W. Champney and F. Champney (1917).

Reading Plan

Week 9: I will be reading Hero Tales from the Native American section. I believe that it would be great to learn about Native American heroes. I believe that it is important to ensure that Native American belief's are kept alive.

Week 10: I will be reading Myths of the Cherokee. I chose this section because I live in the Great Plains and would like to learn folklore about the area in which I live.

Week 11: I will be reading Beowulf and I previously read Grendel. I would like to read it from the other perspective and I know it will be a great read.

Week 12: I will read Through the Looking-Glass, because I am interested in reading some of the classic tales. I have never read Humpty Dumpty or Tweedledee and Tweedledum, and I look forward to learning about the entire story.

Week 13: I will be reading the Brothers Grimm (Crane). I like the movie Into the Woods which is based upon the Brothers Grimm books for princesses, and I want to read the original Rapunzel. I think it would be great to rewrite some of these stories.

Week 14: I will read Dante's Inferno. I chose this because I visited Italy and while in Florence I saw a gallery that contained stone tablets with the different levels of Dante's hell carved into it. I believe this will help me to interpret what I saw with a much deeper understanding.

(Best way to prepare for mythology!)

Looking Forward

I believe that the second half of the semester will be extremely interesting. I hope to continue using the tales of mythical creatures to tell the tales, but I think I would like to give the creatures a deeper emotional connection that caused their actions. I will definitely continue to work ahead so as to finish this class relatively early!

(Challenge)

(Journey)

Reflections: Looking Back

I believe that the writing style I use in which I place the perspective of mythical creatures is a great place for me to contribute to this course. I am most proud of the story I wrote about The Untold Tale of Pyro. I am proud of this story because it has reached been visited 296 times, which is 270 times more than I believed it would be seen. This gave me assurance that my tales were not too extreme or weird, but that they could be enjoyed. After writing this story I constantly find myself looking for mythical creatures and ways that I could tell the story in their eyes. Expect more stories like Pyro's in the future!

(What Pyro would look like found on Pinterest)