Essay: Thematic Motifs in Native American Hero Tales

"Native American Chiefs" by, Claude Niepce 

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   There's quite a few things to be aware of when reading Native American tales about their most highly thought of heroes in their stories. Even though I say that, not all of the qualities that each hero or antagonist possesses will be necessarily idealistic according to the culture of the story. And this is true for nearly every genre of storytelling: there are some characters that break the mold. However, I will start off by try to isolate characteristics that keep on appearing despite the circumstances of the tales.
   One characteristic is seems to be at the essence of each hero in the stories is that of attunement with nature. All the heroes to a degree show that they are able to commune with both plant and animal life alike, as well as spirits of the dead, or embodiments of forces of nature themselves. They often use their knowledge of nature itself to help them succeed in their efforts. Obviously, maintaining a strong connection and wealth of knowledge about the land and the life in it was important for Native American in their most idealized figures.
   Another characteristic that is exhibited strongly in Native American heroes is that of taking great care to amalgamate their specific tribe's unique practices and beliefs into their mode of accomplishment. What makes native americans unique in this though, is that they exhibit these qualities in almost immediate contrast to other tribes' practices or beliefs, as if they want to prove something they have is superior than the other tribe. This isn't inherently the same as a pair of rival gangs in a city: instead, the heroes of each tribe immediately seem to attribute their successes to the personal qualities, practices, or beliefs that their specific tribe has.  Not every tribe has the same goals for their own salvation, their differing paths certainly shape the stories of their heroes.

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Storytelling Week 10: Retelling of BlueJay and His Companions

A Grouse 

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Bluejay, his master and companions were out one day seal hunting at one of their favorite hunting grounds, when they came across their fellow native, Grouse. After they had caught their fair share of fine seal and the resultant meat, Bluejay and his crew teased Grouse about not being good enough to eat the fat (the most succulent part of the seals) as opposed to the poorest, leanest parts. However, Grouse knew that Bluejay and his crew liked to sleep in their canoes while hunting out late. So, when they had all fallen asleep Grouse quietly pushes the all of the canoes far from the shoreline, and they drift beyond the horizon.

    The group wakes up the next day to find themselves on the coast far from their home. They see another village near the shore however. But as soon as they dare approach the encampment for help, the locals challenge the group to a show of strength, skill and willpower with members of their own tribe. The local tribe says it is merely a right of passage for their grown boys to prove their worth against members of another tribe. If the crew lose these tests, they will be killed. The crew, in quiet dismay, agrees nonetheless.
    The first trial is a climbing contest, for which the most steep cliff is selected nearby. Bluejay tells his crew that if they manage to climb to the top before the young men do, they can try to escape.Once they've all started their climb early in the morning, it takes nearly a quarter of a day for either group to reach the top. However, just as Bluejay's entire crew is about to make it to the top, one of them, Land Otter, slips on a piece of seal fat that he had kept away from Grouse as it slips out of his hip pouch. Land Otter falls into the water below, and Bluejay knows they have to come up with another plan.
    The next challenge is a seal catching contest, and Bluejay feels reasonably good about this: he and his party are the best seal hunters, and canoers, in their tribe. Bluejay tells his men that if they can canoe away from the young men, they'll be able to make it home. They all start out with their canoes on the shore with the rest of the young men, and when the elder of the tribe gives the signal they all push off to the hunting grounds. Now, when Bluejay and his crew spot a wonderful area for seal hunting they dive with their hunting knives in hand, and they manage to catch many seals (4-5 seals each). But as they all start paddling  away from the village, they all feel water leaking into their canoes. They realize that Grouse must have also poked holes in their canoes before he sent them off. So Bluejay and his crew must embarrassingly get back to the shore by swimming, far behind the young men of the tribe who already have their seals caught.
    The last trial is an endurance test: Bluejay's entire crew must stay awake for five days, while pitted against four other men from the tribe. By the fourth day, all of the men in competition were getting excessively weary. Suddenly Bluejay had an idea: he took out the seal fat that he still had in his hip pouch and threw it at Land Otter, who started yelling at him and threw a clump of fat back at Bluejay. This continued until a fight broke out between the members of the crew. The young men in competition with Bluejay's party laughed and laughed at the sorry sight. They laughed so hard that they eventually wore themselves out and fell striaght to sleep. After he was sure that the young tribe-men were fast asleep, Bluejay told his men to stop: they all had bloodied each other quite a bit during the whole ordeal, but they realized then that Bluejay was just trying to keep them awake. Bluejay then urgently whispered to his crew to break for the tribes-men's canoes to escape, and that's exactly what they did.
    However, upon seeing the shore of their home village, Bluejay and his crew see Grouse, lying on the sand, happy as could be with a fresh meal of the most succulent seal meat around.

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"BlueJay and His Companions", from Tales of the North American Indians by Stith Thompson (1929)

Author's Note: I pretty much kept the entirety of the tale the same as it was in the original, except for the black comedy/whimsical angle. The original tale was more of a story of bravery, and this didn't really make it very interesting for me. I thought the story of Bluejay and his companions could really benefit from a retelling that was more funny, but still dark (given the situations that they find themselves in).

Reading Diary B: Native American Hero Tales

Eagle by, pixabay

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Another story in this unit is The Attack on the Giant Elk and the Great Eagle: this story starts out telling of giant animals that ate everything, even men, until the Gods decided to intervene. They made a man, Jonayaíyin, who, upon reaching manhood sought out the giant Elk. He finds the Elk in a desert, but cannot stealthily approach easily. A lizard offers Jonayaíyin his coat to blend in with the surroundings, which he does. Then a gopher appears, and advises Jonayaíyin to also dig his way to the Elk. Using the gopher's hole, Jonayaíyin is able to hit the Elk with his arrows. Even though the arrows pierced the heart of the Elk, it didn't die and instead threw itself into a tantrum at Jonayaíyin (creating mountains).But it was no use: thanks to the additional help of the other animals (including a spider), Jonayaíyin was able to beat the Elk.


A follow-up story in the unit is The Son-in-Law Tests, which is about an animal trickster named Wemicus, whose daughter is married to a man that Wemicus constantly tested in feats of skill, strength, and dexterity to prove his fitness to be his daughter's husband. When Wemicus and the man went out to hunt beaver, the daughter told the man that Wemicus would try and burn his moccasins. Anticipating this, the man switched his moccasins with Wemicus', and consequently Wemicus throws his own moccasins in the fire by mistake.
    The next challenge Wemicus puts to the man is one of sliding down a snowy hill. The daughter tells the man that the hill has many poisonous snakes on it, and gives him magical chewing tobacco to spit in front of him so the snakes won't attack.
    After this Wemicus tries to trick the man into being bitten by poisonous lizards in berry bushes, but the wife warns him of this which allows him to survive.
    Another test that Wemicus has the man do is jump over a ravine, but his wife tells him that the ravine will "widen" or "close" depending on what someone says. So when the man easily makes it over, he tells the ravine to "widen", which it does, causing Wemicus to fall (But he doesn't die).
    The final test that Wemicus makes the man undergo is that of a canoeing race. Wemicus however, has his canoe overturned, and is forever transformed into a pike.

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Reading Diary A: Native American Hero Tales

Three Crow Horsemen, by E. Curtis.

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One of the first stories to be told in this unit is Bluejay and His Companions, which is a story about the whimsical adventures of the hero Bluejay and how he manages to get back home after a run-in with a neighboring village tribe. The story starts out with Bluejay, his master and companions seal hunting, after which they tease a fellow native, Grouse, about not being good enough to eat the fat (the most succulent part of the seals) as opposed to the poorest, leanest parts. However, Grouse gets back at the crew by getting them lost at sea for a night.

    They wake up the next day to find themselves on the coast, which leads to a small village. Here, the locals challenge the group to many shows of strength, skill and willpower with members of their own tribe. The first trial is a climbing contest, which Bluejay wins for his team. The next is a seal catching contest, which Bluejay also wins. The next is an endurance test: Bluejay's entire crew must stay awake for five days, while pitted against four other men from the tribe. On the fifth day, however, Bluejay and his crew realize that the tribe's men have fallen asleep and make their escape back home.

The next story in the unit is Dug From Ground, which is a tale about parental acceptance of a boy named Dug From Ground by his non-natal mother. First off, an old woman's daughter, who is a virgin, wonders why her mother always tells her not to pick the two-stalked roots. She finds out the day that she does pick one: a baby rolls out of the ground where the root was, and the daughter takes the baby back to the village. However, the baby's now foster mother ignores him, and the baby is instead taken care of by the girl's mother. 

    The boy grows up, watching his original foster mother from afar. He notices that she goes off somewhere to watch the sun set, and always brings back a pile of acorns with her. WHen the boy gets to the age when he can hunt, the foster mother says "When he can figure out where I get the acorns from, and when he is able to kill a white dear, then I will call him my son." He does this, and hence fulfills a prophesy by the immortals of his village.

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