Reading Diary Week 10: Myths of the Cherokee

Myths of the Cherokee, by James Mooney

How the World was Made: I find it a little strange that the storyteller takes the trouble to say that the earth was formed from a small speck of mud, stretched and hung by ropes from the sky, but then can't describe who it was who hung it there. I  guess it would be too much to explain, and might stray from the story, but when it says, "but no one remembers who put it there," it feels like a cheap excuse to me to avoid explaining something.

I did enjoy the explanation for the creation of mountains, that The Great Buzzard flew down to inspect the earth, but became weary and thus flew lower, dipping his wings into the soft earth, and when he brought them back up, the mud formed mountains.

I think it's funny the explanation that there is a mysterious "underworld" beneath our own, to which we can travel by springs. The narrator says we know the underworld has different seasons, because the waters are warmer during our winter, and cooler than the air in our summer. This seems absurd now, given scientific fact, but an interesting concept nonetheless. Before this, the story tells how one can get to the underworld by fasting and traveling via the water guided by an underworlder. I'd like to write a story about someone who does just that!

Possibly the most absurd thing I've read so far: "At first there were only a brother and sister until he struck her with a fish and told her to multiply, and so it was." Maybe that's what I'll tell my kids when they ask where babies come from.

Origin Of The Pleiades And The Pin: Somewhat of an odd story, but I like the idea of using its general theme for a story of my own. Young boys playing a game, and their mothers scold them, so they decide they'll run away where they can't bother their mothers anymore. Then, of course, their mothers are devastated to see they've lost their boys. Not that children should do things to "prove their mothers wrong," but it's a good example of how some situations seem so important or horrible to a child, when to a parent, it's just another lesson to teach, and in that miscommunication, a terribly important link is lost between the two. 

The Moon and the Thunders: I like the first explanation for the phases of the moon, but I was also a little disturbed by the fact that the sun's brother was courting her secretly...I like the story idea, but I wish instead of her brother, it could just be...someone she thought she didn't like.

(Why hide your face, moon?)

 
I also found the short explanation of "the thunders" intriguing... I picture the rush of waters, the quake of a mountain, thunderstorms...all as a kind of being that I could write a story about!