Reading Notes: Tales of the North American Indians by Stith Thompson (reading A)

Eagle Feathers
Eagle line

Native American Hero Tales unit -Tales of the North American Indians by Stith Thompson (1929), http://mythfolklore.blogspot.com/2014/06/myth-folklore-unit-native-american_10.html

The Jealous Uncle (Kodiak)

This is the first of a three part story. It is difficult to know the hero in the story at the end of Part one however, strong characters have evolved. “Unnatural Uncle” is a feared man in the family. Seemingly immune to discussion, he feels compelled to kill his nephews. He is gruff and savage in personality. The wife of “Unnatural Uncle” is a kind woman who tells the mother of the nephew to agree to raise the child as a girl. She helps to keep the secret. She is sad when the “Unnatural Uncle” finds out that they were fooling him. She threatens her husband toward the end of Part one stating that if he hurts the child, he will come to grief. The nephew appears unafraid and faces the uncle with confidence. He abides by the uncle, but was thoughtful in seeing the playthings from his dead siblings and keeping them with him. Smartly, the boy uses the cranberry to escape the tree that his uncle caused to fall upon him. And in a smart alec fashion delivers wood to the Uncles front door.

The Jealous Uncle (cont.)

The boy is confident in the next part of the story. He exclaims that his parents should not worry that no matter where his uncle takes him that he will always come back. The Uncle summons the boy to get ducks and eggs. When the mean Uncle pushes the boy down the cliff, the boy, seeing the trap, uses the eagle-down feathers from his siblings to break his fall. Again, the leaves the eggs and ducks on the uncle’s front door. The Uncle’s wife pleads with the Uncle to leave the boy along because grief will come to him if he doesn’t. The angry uncle retorts that the boy cannot hurt him. The confident boy tells his weeping parents that there is no place that his uncle can take him from which he would be unable to return. Upon summoning the boy again, the uncle took him to go after clams. The uncle wanted the boy to seek the large clams far out in the waters. The uncle ordered the clam to take the boy and the clam enclosed about him. The uncle left confident and grinning the the boy would not be able to return now. The boy cut his way out of the clam with his knife and deposited clams on the uncle’s front porch. The kind wife simply told the uncle that she had warned him and if he continues to attempt to kill the boy, he will suffer. The next day the uncles made a box - a plaything for his nephew. The boy told his parents that he may be away for a long time, but that he will come back.

The Jealous Uncle (end)

The horrible uncle tells the boy to see if the box fits, then puts the lid on and wraps a rope around the box and dumps the box into the water. The boy drifts for a long time then hears women’s voices who untie the box. He was amongst the Eagle people in the Eagle land. The two beautiful girls who had found him were the village chef’s daughters. The chef gave the boy to the oldest daughter, whom he lived with happily. He did yearn for his parents and thought about what his cruel uncle was doing. His wife, a kind woman told her father about the boy and he told him to put on the chief’s (his) eagle skin and to fly over to his village and bring his parents back. But he didn’t see his parents, so he brought back a whale and put in on the beach, knowing that all the village would go to it. His parents were forbidden the whale meat. The boy desired to seek revenge how the uncle was treating his parents. As the eagle, the boy on his third try swooped down and grabbed the uncle, he took him on top of a cliff and told him that he could forgive him for killing his brothers, and trying to kill him four times, but not for the treatment of his parents. He told him he would spare his life if he could swim back to shore. The uncle said he could not swim and ask the boy to take him back. The boy put back on the eagle skin and dumped him into the sea. The village watched as the uncle died. The next day the boy took his parents, one in each claw, as they had consented to join Eagle land and they live there now.

Bluejay and His Companions - Quinault

The main character, Bluejay is not very kind. He and his buddies who hunt together, bring back food, but give Grouse, a widower and canoe builder, only the lean parts. Bluejay teases and pokes fun of Grouse. Grouse makes a wooden seal and gives it directions and places it in the water. The wood seal causes the canoe of Bluejay and his hunting friends to go astray and land on an unfamiliar island. Bluejay is challenged to a climbing contest against a squirrel and he wins.

Bluejay and His Companions (cont)

The group comes to another village and this time Bluejay is challenged to a diving contest against Hair-seal. With the help of his master, Bluejay cheats and wins the contest. The group next float to another village, and the four wanderers (one had drowned in Part one) to a sweat-house challenge against for of their people. This time Beaver and Land Otter cheat by digging a tunnel in the dark sweat-house that leads to the river. The four stayed in the river then returned to the sweat-house beating the others. The next village challenges the four to stay up five nights and five days without sleeping against four of their people. Bluejay kept them up talking but the group escaped by a hole dug by Land Otter and Beaver. They put wood that had phosphorescent spots that looked like eyes and fooled the others. The villagers pursued the wanderers by canoe and were gaining on them. The group told Bluejay to call on his tamanous to help after all their paddles were broken by Bluejay’s master rowing so hard. Bluejay admitted that he didn’t have a tamanous, but the others used their to create wind, fog, and a great storm that killed the villagers. The wanderers stole the dead villager’s paddles and found their way back to their Quinault village. Whenever, they went hunting for then on, they gave Grouse the biggest and fattest seal.

Dug-From-Ground - very odd story...hard to follow characters, places, and plot

Dug-From-Ground (cont.)

The Attack on the Giant Elk and the Great Eagle

This story utilizes the symbolic number four. Jonayaiyin became a man in four days. In four steps he reached the distant desert in the south where the Giant Elk lived. Jonayaiyin tried four times to put on the coat of the Lizard to conceal himself and get closer to the giant Elk before he succeeded. When the Gopher made a hole for Jonayaiyin to enter to get to the Giant Elk, it took him four times before he was able to get in it. Once in the hole and at the Elk’s beating heart, it took four times with his bow drawn before he turned to escape through the tunnel that Gopher had dug for him.

The Attack on the Giant Elk (cont.)

In four strides Jonayaiyin reached the home of the Eagle. His ear told him to turn each of the four directions - east, west, north, and south as the Eagle tried to attack him. The last use of four is used when the bat, who helped Jonayaiyin escape the Eagles nest after he had killed the mother and father Eagle, came back four times to get more feathers because the Bat had had them robbed by the small birds. The fifth time, Jonayaiyin tells the bat that since she can’t take care of the feathers that she will never again have feathers.