Week 10 Story: The Old Man and an Aching Tooth

One day there was an old man sitting by a campfire, with his donkey. As he properly seasoned his supper, he noticed that his tooth had a terrible ache. He tried everything to cure the ache. He attempted pulling the tooth out with his hand. Then he tied a string to it and his donkey, hoping the donkey could pull it out. Not even the strength of the donkey could make the tooth budge. Eventually he gave up and sat to eat his supper that was warming over the fire.

When he put a spoonful into his mouth, it scalded his tongue, which caused him to spit the hot liquid onto the grass nearby.

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There was a butterfly in the grass that was sprayed by the liquid, causing it to fly away from its resting place.

The butterfly flew off eventually encountering the Indian hero, Kut O Yis, who was practicing his archery skills. The presence of the butterfly caused Kut O Yis to overshoot his target by a few inches.

The arrow flew off in the distance and struck a horse in the rear. At the surprise of the arrow, the horse bucked, whinnied, and neighed.

Eventually, all of the noise coming from the horse awoke its owner who was startled by the horse's reaction. Wondering what had happened, he grabbed his revolver out of its sling and let loose a couple of warning shots.

The old man's donkey was scared by the warning shots from the horse's owner, which made it kick out its hind legs.

As the donkey kicked out its hind legs, it accidentally hit the spice can by the fire pit. The can was propelled back into the old man's face.

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The spice can released a cloud of dust, which hit the old man in the face. After sniffing in the spices, the old man's nose was tickled quite a bit.

With a tickled nose, the old man realized that he needed to sneeze. So he turned back to his left and reared his head back to sneeze. He wasn't polite when it came to sneezing, so as he lurched his head forward to let out the force of his sneeze, his mouth met the boulder of which he was unaware.

The connection between the rock and his teeth caused the aching tooth to be knocked straight from his mouth. In shock and a bit of pain, the old man felt around in his mouth and realized the aching was gone.

To this day, the old man hasn't had a toothache.
This is all thanks to the supper that scalded the old man's mouth.
Causing him to spit on the butterfly.
That flew away and distracted Kut O Yis.
Who missed his target with his arrow.
That ended up in the hindquarters of a horse.
Which woke the horse's owner.
Who fired off his gun.
Leading to the old man's donkey being startled.
That kicked the spice can over.
Causing the old man to sneeze.
Right into a boulder that knocked his aching tooth out.

Author's Note: I was inspired to attempt this story style after looking through the different types Dr. Gibbs gave to us. I combined the technique from the accumulative stories with some of the characters in the Blackfoot stories. In the accumulative stories, there are two styles that I built off of. I used the story, "This is the House that Jack Built" to help create a conclusion to my overall story, and I kind of followed the old woman's tale for the rest of the story. Instead of creating my own characters, I used my reading from last week (Blackfoot Stories), and implemented a few characters from those stories. The old man was a popular supernatural character in the Blackfoot tales, so I wanted to make him my main character. Kut O Yis is a hero from the stories who uses a bow. I thought it would be funny to have him be in the background as part of the sequence of events. The butterfly was a symbol for the "butterfly effect," which was how the story's plot unfolded. Truthfully, most of the other things I included in the story were added in to complement the characters I had already used. I just tried to match what I thought would be appropriate for the time frame of the stories.

Bibliography: Accumulative Stories in The Nursery Rhyme Book edited by Andrew Lang
                         Blackfoot Stories by Grinnell

Week 10 Reading Notes: Native American Hero Tales, Part B

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"Lodge-Boy and Thrown-Away" starts off as an extremely gruesome story. The details are vivid and quite disgusting. I'm not sure how the man new his wife had been killed by the Red Woman right after he found that she was dead. The names in the story are quite literal (Thrown in Spring and Thrown behind the Curtain). The plot of the first story is completely random. I am confused as to how the mother came back to life and how the old woman with the pot is their grandmother? So they killed their grandmother by drowning her in the boiling pot? Then went on to kill an alligator by ripping its heart out? Wow. These two boys are seeming to be malevolent. I am looking for the hero aspect to come into the story. I won't write out the details of the reasoning as to why snakes have flat heads, but I will say that the story continues with the gruesome theme.That was one random story.

"The Jealous Father" (similar title to "The Jealous Uncle"). I wonder if the stories will be similar? Not exactly similar but the stories did start off in parallel ways. I wonder why this is such a popular plot to follow. This is the third story I've read so far that has used a similar plot. The first two about the uncle and son in law were really similar and the jealous father started off the same.

So Dirty Boy didn't actually shoot the arrows or is Sun the same person as Dirty Boy? The second daughter did the right thing by keeping her word and it paid off for her in the end. Although the plot was somewhat confusing at the beginning, it did serve a valuable lesson about integrity and honesty. This story had more of an obvious theme at the end, which I wasn't able to find in the others.

Bibliography: Native American Hero Tales, by Stith Thompson

Week 10 Reading Notes: Native American Hero Tales, Part A

(Batman  --  clement127)
Source: Flickr

The first story begins similarly to the story I read in week 9 about Kut O Yis. The Jealous Uncle is the same as the son in law. The parents also aim to hide the identity of the baby born, which is what the husband and wife did in the other story. I wonder if the endings and plot throughout will be the same too. I'm not exactly sure why the uncle got his name "Unnatural Uncle". He is definitely weird and horrific by Unnatural seems like a weird adjective to use. I think there could be better names to fit his character. I don't understand why the parents don't do something to prevent the uncle from hurting their son. He literally told them that he would kill the boy right after he attempted to and they just became sad. The boy also keeps going out with the uncle. At this point, after both of the other sons have been killed, it seems as though someone would do something about this Unnatural Uncle. Plus, aren't there weapons at all? I am surprised the uncle didn't fashion a knife or bow to try and kill the boy.

There is another story of how the bat came to not have feathers (similar to the reasons as to why cats don't like dogs in a story I read in the Japanese Fairy Tales). I'm not exactly sure how the story about the elk and great eagle follows the title of "Hero Tales" though. Jonayaiyin is pretty ruthless when it comes to killing the eagles. I know they were bad, but it seems as though Jonayaiyin is more of a vigilante than a hero. Really, the eagles could be given the benefit of the doubt by saying that the mother was only feeding her babies (not intending to be bad), so really Jonayaiyin isn't a hero at all. It was more of a story concerned with survival of the fittest.

Bibliography: Native American Hero Tales, by Stith Thompson

Story Planning Week 9: Blackfoot Butterfly Effect

I have read one or two stories that implement the cumulative tale style, and I found them to be very interesting. I thought about trying them out a few weeks ago, but I couldn't come up with very good ideas to write about. For next week's story post, I would like to use this style to tell a story about Blackfoot Indian culture. From my reading during week 9, I have found some information about the Blackfoot and also learned about the fables they told. The different steps I use in my cumulative tale may not be one hundred percent accurate, but they will be based off of the stories I read throughout week 9.

"The story about the rolling stone is quite a stretch. The whole time I was focused on the conflict between the man and the rock (which was already pretty crazy), but the purpose of the story didn't even turn out to be about them. It was about the way hawks look today and why they do." (Week 9 Reading Note Part A Post)

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A few of the stories, such as the rolling stone one, involved an old man and events he went through, which lead to something occurring that changed history. The example I wrote about is with the stone that chased the old man, which was stopped by the hawks, leading to hawk beaks changing forever. I think it would be awesome to gather a few of these things from each story, to add together for an overall cumulative tale. In the end, my goal would be to have the specific things add together to cause some grand event at the end. It could also be comical to have a huge list, which end up causing a very small thing to happen (such as a drop of water to fall or someone to sneeze).

My list for the cumulative tale (will be similar to the butterfly effect) is going to include the old man (popular in the Blackfoot readings), a boulder, a drop of water, spices, a fire pit, the old man's wife, the sun, Kut O Yis (a hero from the reading part B) shooting an arrow, some for of animal (probably an actual butterfly to symbolize what is going on), and I may add or subtract any as I figure out what I need. This style is very new to me, but it seems like it will be fun so hopefully all goes well!

Bibliography: Blackfoot Stories by Grinnell

Week 9 Reading Notes: Blackfoot Stories, Part B

The very first story starts off with a new character, the woman chief. I was wondering if the only person throughout the stories would be the old man, but I am glad that a new character has been added in. It will be interesting to see how the two interact. "The Smart Woman Chief" has been more informational than some of the other stories I've read. I think its pretty cool to learn about some of the cultural history (even though it is somewhat brief) of the Blackfoot Indians. This will be really helpful if I choose to do a story planning post where I talk about the culture of the Blackfoot. I wouldn't have to do as much research.

(hercules  --  sinterbear)
Source: Flickr

I like the idea of how children are named in the stores. "Kut O Yis" or "Clot of Blood" seems pretty weird, but I think it's cool because of the background behind the name. Maybe I will look up some different phrases that I could use to name the characters in my storytelling post. The setup of marrying women in the story is very strange. The only reason they say Kut O Yis is a girl is to keep the son in law from killing the child, because he wants to marry the girl. Smart move by the husband and wife. The son in law is turning out to be quite the antagonist. He reminds me of a mythological figure such as Cronos.

Kut O Yis literally grew up in a matter of minutes. From boy to man. I'm not exactly sure how he was able to do that? Is he supposed to have special powers? Maybe I could do a spin on it to make it like an Indian Hercules hybrid story. I know Hercules didn't grow up that quickly, but for some reason this story reminds me of Hercules. It says Kut O Yis punished the wives after he killed the son in law, but I'm not sure how he did so? That part is pretty vague. I wonder why the number seven was chosen for the amount of bad things Kut O Yis defeated. Is there symbolism behind it? Like the luck number 7?

Bibliography: Blackfoot Stories by Grinnell

Week 9 Reading Notes: Blackfoot Stories, Part A

In the description, it says the language has been translated from original Blackfoot Indian stories, so it is readable now. Even from what i've read so far, I can tell which spots aren't quite as translated from the Blackfoot. I thought it would make it harder to read or bother me, but I actually enjoy it a little bit because it gives it more of a realistic feel.

The point of the storytelling is similar to some of the others I have read in the class. They give fictitious accounts of characters, which lead to the reason something is the way it is today. In this case it was about the deer and antelope bodies.

(blackfoot  --  Henning Leweke)
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The story about the rolling stone is quite a stretch. The whole time I was focused on the conflict between the man and the rock (which was already pretty crazy), but the purpose of the story didn't even turn out to be about them. It was about the way hawks look today and why they do. Pushing their bills against a rock to be formed that way… I don't know about that one as much. I did enjoy the writing style, which sounded authentic. I'm not sure how good I would be at writing in that style though. If I was to do a story based on the Blackfoot, I could use another style and make it a parody. Maybe a super thick cowboy accent or something.

The old man is common in the stories. I wonder if Grinnell meant for this old man to be the same person among each of the stories he is in, or if they are all different old men?

The last story with the sun theft didn't seem to have much of a point. I guess the moral would be not to try and steal, but I think it would've been more comical if it had something to do with the old man lying. Then it could have tied into the common saying, "Liar, liar, pants on fire" because his pants were set on fire in the end.


Bibliography: Blackfoot Stories by Grinnell