Sunday, March 26, 2017

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

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