Essay: Myths of the Cherokee Week 4

Myths of the Cherokee           

 Today I decided to explore the Cherokee culture in a half-unit reading and I found some really interesting stories.  With Cherokee in my bloodline, I wanted to learn more about the tales told by the Cherokee people. 

            The most interesting thing to me is the story of the creation of earth in every religion, culture, or society.  So, the first story in this unit explained how the Cherokee Indians viewed the creation of the world.  This started with only a small piece of land floating and suspended form the sky of rock.  Since they knew the cords wouldn’t last forever, they wanted to find what was below their land.  Suddenly the earth began to grow and grow.  The Buzzard flew over the wetland creating mountains and valleys.  The plants and the animals filled the earth and then man came after.

            The only thing they were missing was the fire to warm their land.  They saw a lightning strike a far away island but none of the animals could reach the island to bring it back.  After many tries, the only one that could succeed was a little spider that brought back a little fire so there could be warmth for the island.

            A while after that, stories about how the people interacted became the center of attention.  One day, the story of the little boys floating up into the heavens was a story that many people told.  I wonder if this has any alignment with Jesus resurrecting or angels floating in the heavens?  One little boy was pulled down and soaked into the earth but after many tears from his mother, a pine tree grew where he sank and grew so tall up to the sky. 

           

            Those are only a few of my favorite stories from the Cherokee tales.  There are so many fascinating things to learn from the stories of different cultures.  I enjoyed this read because it was very interesting to me and I love how in touch with nature and their earth the Cherokee people live.

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Storytelling Week 4: Christopher and the Fountain

Christopher and the Fountain         

A young boy by the name of Christopher lived in a little village outside of Jerusalem.  Christopher was the smartest and most devoted and trustworthy boy in his school.  After searching for the right person to carry out this important task for months, the King of his village sent him out to find the mysterious fountain of youth.  The young boy was confused and did not think there was such a thing, but he did not want to argue with the King. 

            With friends and family nervous and skeptical about his adventure, Christopher set out to fulfill the task for the King.  It was an early rainy Wednesday morning when he left, but the King gave him no direction to where this fountain may be.  The King was selfish and did not think of others so he told Christopher to only return to the village when he gathers a gallon of water from the fountain of youth. 

            Climbing through the bushes and trees and walking across the hot deserts, Christopher still had no sign of the fountain of youth.  Years went by and Christopher learned to live off the land but continued looking for this mysterious fountain.  He began to think that this was not worth it.  He wanted to start a new life somewhere else and never return to his village, but being the devoted person that he was, he knew he had to fulfill this task. 

            One day, passing through another long desert, he fell upon a small body of water.  A body of water in the middle of the desert? Christopher knew this was something out of the ordinary.  The heat was getting to his head and all he wanted was to drink some water.  Christopher knelt down by the water and began to drink and drink until he couldn’t anymore.  All the sudden, tingles shot through his body and he had never felt more awake and energized.  Had he found the fountain of youth after many years of searching?  He knew this was the fountain and with a new jolt of energy, Christopher filled his bottle with the water and began to head back in the direction of the village.

            He brought this water back to his village and shared it with his friends, family, and the king.  After drinking the water from the fountain of youth, those people would stay young forever.  They still walk the earth today, but they stay within the walls of this small village.

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Author’s Note: This specific unit explains a lot of the Holy stories from the different religions.  Even though each story is ultimately connected, they all have different characters and different plots.  Many characters overlap, but I chose to dial into one story specifically.  My favorite was the El Khudr the Evergreen story, therefore I took the idea about searching for the fountain of youth and traveled through the adventure with El Khudr. All of these stories have a Muslim decent and this story was significant to me because it was different than all the stories that are very similar to the Christian stories.  Also, this is a very important and significant figure in the Islamic culture so it stuck out to me and I had to include it in my storytelling.  I changed a lot in this story and basically only kept the concept of the fountain of youth from the original tale.  There were more characters in the original story, as well, and I did not include them in my twist on the story because I really wanted to focus on his journey in finding the fountain rather than the only loops that were in the story.  If this story does not sound familiar to you, it had many different names to associate with different religions.

Reading Diary B: Folklore of the Holy Land

Folklore of the Holy Land

This portion of the reading began with the story of the death of Adam and the importance of the tree that his son planted at his head.  The angel could not give them a fruit from the tree of life but he was able to get remnants of the tree. Falling into depression, an angel saved him right in time and told him to go and water the tree at the head of Adam’s grave to save mankind. As he passed someone on the side of the road that needed help, Lot offered him some of the water that he was supposed to water the tree with.  It ended up being the Devil and he emptied the jar so no water was left to water the tree. Satan keeps tricking him and pouring out the water but being the nice person Lot is, it was hard for him to say no when he sees someone thirsty on the side of the road.  After Lot died, the stump of the tree was thrown in the middle of nowhere and set up as a bridge.  Time went on but one day a Queen knew this bridge was something special so instead of crossing it like anyone else, she knelt down and worshipped the bridge.  This was preserved until it was used again to make the cross that Christ died on. 

            The next story was told about David.  He split his time in thirds and spent one day worshipping Allah and studying the scripture, the second day was devoted to the problems in the state, and the third day was spent handling the duties of life.  On his pilgrimage to Jerusalem, he locked himself in a tower and did not want to be disturbed. Up in the tower, he found an amazing bird full of wings that looks like jewels.  After that, two angels in the form of humans went to the tower that David was locked in. They claimed he was evil and he cried.  A prophet was sent to him and explained that he needed to confess what he had done wrong and the reasons that made him a sinner and he would be forgiven. 

            A saint in Palestine is said to discover the fountain of youth. Imagine how popular that would be these days.  Many others looked for this fountain of youth.  Alexander, who had two horns, washed their dead fish in this stream.  The fish came to life and escaped but this did not dawn on the explorers that this was a special pool of water.  They missed out.  They continued on their adventure because they could not see what was right in front of them.  They missed out on the opportunity of a lifetime and continued to a city in which he named after himself called Alexandria.  On the other hand, El Khudr took the time to see his surroundings and found the fountain and drank the water it held.  He, now, never dies and has many names that people know him as. Prayers to him are said to be effective.  

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Reading Diary A: Folklore of the Holy Land

Mideast Unit: Folklore of the Holy Land

After reading about the Moslem Cosmogony, there are many similarities to the Christian belief about God but the Muslim people call their God, Allah.  They have an interesting beginning, starting with the creation of the Tablet of Destiny.  The next thing created was a giant pen.  After the pen and the writings in the tablet were full and the pen was dried up, they moved it and only Allah knows everything in the tablet.  Water was then created from a pearl by Allah.  The interesting thing about Allah is anytime he spoke, he had a voice like thunder and all the land trembled.  You know that he is a God to these people because he built his throne from the roof down, instead of starting with the foundation.  Just like the Christian religion, Allah created the wind and only He knows how much wind is there.  The only reason He created all of this was to display His glory.

            As the story continues, the land is created from the water because of the foaming waves.  The Earth is said to be surrounded by mountains to keep everything on earth from falling into space.  Have you every wondered how the earth is so stable in space? Well, according to this story, a strong angel is under the earth to support it in space.  Under the angel is a big emerald rock and under that rock was a giant bull with big horns for the emerald to rest on.  Then that bull stands on a great whale in the ocean.  The story then goes on to tell what will happen on resurrection day. 

            Adam was created out of a handful of dust from various places around the world.  Adam and a female were once the same person.  Half man and the other half woman but they separated into two perfect people.  The female failed to listen to the male and follow his orders so she was kicked out of the perfect place and became the enemy.  This story differs from the Christian story of Adam and Eve because the enemy female came into the story, too.  She was the reason why the serpent made Eve eat the forbidden fruit.  After eating the fruit, they were kicked out of the Paradise land and fell onto Earth.  This story continues by describing Adam in a way that is unhuman-like.  

            The next part of the story describes Noah and the Ark.  I always wondered why no body tried getting on the ark with Noah and all the animals when there was a flood coming.  Noah was sent to warn everyone about the flood but instead he was shunned and even his own family didn’t believe him.  Og is a very interesting character in this story, too.  Og was a giant and tried destroying the ark with Noah and all the animals in there but he was never successful.  He lived through the flood because he was so tall that he did not drown like the rest of humankind. His goal in life was to destroy the Israelites.  Og had a plan to destroy the land with a large rock. Many others saw that Og was trying to destroy then so they began to hit Og in the ankles with stones until he was killed.  After this story, the conclusion was made about the three different types of women.  There are the followers of  God who help their husbands, the stupid ones that don’t really understand what is going on, and the third type are the stubborn and mean women that do not do what they’re told. 

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