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Carrie
Unregistered User
(1/15/01 8:13:35 pm)
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The White Deer
Terri,
I thought I'd start a new post on the subject. Is this Native American tale -- Yaqui perhaps? It sounds like a NA story and I've been digging through the stacks of Southwestern tales I've been collecting, but can't find it. I'm wondering if it is similar to The Antelope Woman (Tewa) or White Shell Woman (Navajo). If you haven't already seen it -- the book "Molded in the Image of Changing Woman: Navajo Views on the Human Body and Personhood" is a fabulous book put out by the University of Arizona Press. I'm trying to become more familiar with the folklore of Southwestern tribes but my oh my.
To All:
Is anybody else reading these types of stories. I'm finding an amazing similarity to the European fairy tales I'm used to reading. Coyote as Pandora, Roadrunner as Prometheus, skinwalkers -- werecreatures, Beauty and Beast type tales, and so on. I find it quite amazing and wonderful. I'm also interested in the power of song in Native American storytelling -- it reminds me of the bards. I wonder, does anyone know if the familiar fairy tales (Grimm, Anderson, etc.) originated as songs? Right now I'm reading about the Papago song cycles and then hope to move on to the Yaqui deer songs. I understand they are performed in Tucson at times -- does any one know if this is true? Some other interesting tidbits -- the White Mountain Apache tale "Coyote Fights a Lump of Pitch" reminds me of Brer Rabbit -- very funny. Right now I'm working on pieces detailing the facts and folklore on a variety of animals including Eagles, Owls, Bears, Javelina, Rattlesnakes, Hummingbirds, Antelope/Deer, and Butterflies as well as pieces on Saquaros and Ironwood Trees. All comments and references are appreciated. There is a ton of info out there and I want to be thorough. Anyone read "Pueblo Birds and Myths?" It is an absolute favorite of mine.
Another odd thought -- a lot off the topic -- I had someone compare modern Rap music (which I never listen to) to Homer's Iliad. He likened the stories -- comments? It made me think of the Myths in Miami piece we discussed earlier.
Carrie
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Gregor9
Registered User
(1/16/01 5:50:01 am)
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Coyote tales
Carrie,
Of course, one tribe or people's Coyote IS another people's Rabbit, so the similarities even to Br'er Rabbit shouldn't be surprising. There are similarities to Bugs Bunny as well, who may well be our supreme contemporary trickster. The figure of Coyote seems infinitely adaptable, perhaps because the landscape he inhabits seems always to be part dreamscape. I've been reading Coyote's stories for years, and used one as a the wellspring for a story, "How Meersh the Bedeviler Lost His Toes," that was published a couple years back.
You might want to look at Lewis Hyde's book "Trickster Makes the World" if you haven't, as an interesting comparative study of this figure across global culture.
GF
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Kerrie
Registered User
(1/16/01 7:36:18 am)
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A bit on White Deer
I tried to do a search, and thisis all I've been able to come up with so far:
The White Deer : And Other
Stories Told by the Lenape
by John Bierhorst (Editor)
www.nwsc.org/games/whitedeer.shtml
Th White Deer and Virginia Dare
I also found a link about White Deer and Asian culture, bu tthe site was no longer there. I'll keep looking (quiet day at work) and get back to you!
| Carrie
Unregistered User
(1/16/01 5:10:21 pm)
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Trickster
Greg,
I suppose I used the wrong word in my earlier post -- I am not "surprised" that there are trickster figures in other cultures, just pleased at the similarities that occur across vast amounts of time and place. However, I'm not so sure about the rabbit as a trickster figure and would say that Warner Bros. should have picked a more compelling animal. And of course, I'm sure they'd disagree -- just as Disney would claim that their fairy tale interpretations were infaliable. I can however see why many Native American trickster figures, such as the raven, have earned the title. It's just that the coyote is my favorite -- he seems a complete natural.
As Native American lore is quick to point out, even though Coyote often gets killed in his misadventures, he never dies – a trait the coyote species seems to share, much to the chagrin of ranchers, biologists and trappers. Coyotes have used their wits and versatility to counter predator control efforts by governmental agencies since the first bounty legislation enacted in 1825 in the state of Missouri. By 1945 figures compiled by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service placed the take of coyotes west of the Mississippi in excess of three million, yet the coyote remained as abundant as ever and actually increased its geographic spread into unoccupied areas including urban areas and the range once occupied by the eradicated Mexican Gray Wolf. I love the fact that experienced coyotes will dig up traps, turn them over and mark them with urine and scat -- an amusing way to say "piss off." I don't think anyone could say they lack a sense of humor.
I love the fact that the mythical Coyote often tries to be what he isn’t, often with disastrous results -- much like his human brother. He tries to fly with the blackbirds only to fall from the sky and his attempts at skimming the water like a dragonfly leave him drowned at the bottom of a pond. But despite his bad luck and propensity for death, Coyote always revives to go on blithely to his next adventure.
This wily canid is astute, sagacious, iconoclastic, versatile, shrewd, mischievous, fleet-footed, playful, cunning and droll – and he has resourcefully outwitted his only natural predator, humankind, for centuries.
My hat is off to this "Laughing Philosopher of the Plains." I can't think of a better animal for the role.
Carrie
| Carrie
Unregistered User
(1/16/01 5:14:35 pm)
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Bedeviler...
Greg,
Where was "How Meersh the Bedeviler Lost His Toes" published? I'd like to read it.
And didn't you love Terri's coyotes in the Wood Wife?
Carrie
| Midori
Unregistered User
(1/16/01 5:57:16 pm)
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rabbits
Carrie,
Rabbits are great tricksters in Tibetan mythology--I have a bunch of very naughty ones my mother collected as a central asian scholar. I grew up as a kid believing not in the man in the moon, but the trickster rabbit pounding rice (the right hand of the moon's face is the rabbit, the left side his paw holding the pounder)
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Kerrie
Registered User
(1/16/01 6:27:38 pm)
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Re: The White Deer
HAKUSHIKA. The White Deer. In ancient China, legend tells of a mystical white deer, with special spiritual powers. One day Emperor Hsuen Chon,...
I found the above reference, but cannot seem to find any more. Is this familiar to anyone?
I also can't help but think of the Golden Hind whenever I think of the White Deer or Great Stag that is often mentioned in stories. Is there a connection between among this cast of characters?
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Gregor9
Registered User
(1/17/01 7:45:15 am)
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Rabbits & Meersh
Midori,
Yes, rabbit in the moon!
Carrie,
Not only in Tibetan but also some North American Indian tribes considered rabbit their trickster rather than coyote--also spider and crow (as you say) and others. The stories in many cases are the same, only the identity of the trickster has been changed.
The "Meersh" story was published in the September 1999 Asimov's Magazine. I'd be happy to send you a copy of the story if you can't locate the magazine (which may be something of a challenge, as I don't think digests like that have much of a shelf life).
GF
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CoryEllen
Registered User
(1/17/01 4:56:17 pm)
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Br'er Rabbit
Carrie -
I believe that the Br'er Rabbit story actually *came* from a Biloxi Indian (Louisiana) version of Coyote and the Lump of Pitch, called Tar Baby. There was a significant amount of interaction between American Indians and slaves everywhere - in North Carolina, the Cherokee were major plantation owners and slaveholders, and in many southern states American Indians made up large portions of the slave population. Around this time, many stories were adapted by African-Americans from American Indian sources.
Here I must recommend the excellent book, "American Indian Trickster Tales," collected and edited by Richard Erdoes and Alfonso Ortiz. By the same two individuals, "American Indian Myths and Legends" is also wonderful.
Cory-Ellen
| Midori
Unregistered User
(1/19/01 6:15:06 am)
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slaves
CoryEllen,
I have west African versions of the rabbit and the tar baby story that would seem to suggest that the narrative existed before slave interaction with Indians. It may just be that's one of those stories that has that kind of universal life (unless the West African versions were introduced to West Africa by returned slaves to Freetown...still I have versions of it all up and down west africa and one or two that though they involve different kinds of tricksters and "tarbabies" throughout Africa, they have essentially the same plot.)
I am really intrigued by your comment that the Cherokee owned plantations and slaves. I'm not very well versed in Antebellum history, but after looking through what I have, I have had some trouble finding more information about that. (I have Hugh Thomas's huge study on the slave trade and have been ploughing through it...very slowly I might add!) Could you give me a reference for that bit of information? It's fascinating and I just wanted to follow it up. Many thanks
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Terri
Registered User
(1/19/01 3:32:28 pm)
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Deer tales
Carrie:
Yes, the Yaqui deer dances are still performed in Tucson -- during the Easter ceremonies and at other times as well. They're beautiful and magical. I wrote about it a little bit in the "Shamans and Shapeshifters" article for Realms of Fantasy, which is posted in the Forum of the Endicott site.
Carolyn Dunn, who is on this board from time to time, is the real expert on deer tales though. Has everyone here seen her gorgeous anthology THROUGH THE EYE OF THE DEER: AN ANTHOLOGY OF NATIVE AMERICAN WRITERS? I highly, highly recommend it. There's also a great nonfiction book on deer in American by Richard Nelson.
Edited by: Terri at: 1/19/01
3:38:09 pm
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CoryEllen
Registered User
(1/19/01 7:56:50 pm)
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References
Midori,
I learned about the Cherokee slaveholding in a college class - Native American History East of the Mississippi Before 1850. Unfortunately, most of my books from that class are in boxes in my mother's garage. I can find a one line reference to it in "Killing the White Man's Indian: Reinventing Native Americans at the End of the Twentieth Century" (Fergus M. Bordewich,1996): "[Cherokees] operated toll roads, blacksmith shops and taverns, and plantations that exploited the labor of black slaves." Other than that, I have nothing on hand. If you have access to microfiche, primary source material on the subject can probably be found in The Cherokee Phoenix, a newspaper of the early 1800s edited by Elias Boudinot, born Kilikeena. I'll e-mail my professor from that class and ask for more references - I can either post them here or you can e-mail me at cefaery@yahoo.com with your e-mail address, and then I can forward them.
I apologize for being temporarily vague More info soon!
That's really interesting about the Tar Baby story - I don't have a date on my version, so who knows which way it went? Many stories migrated through close interaction between Black slaves and American Indians, and it must have gone both ways.
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Richard
Parks
Registered User
(1/19/01 10:08:05 pm)
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Re: slaves
Slaveholding wasn't confined to the Cherokee, come to that. The Choctaws held slaves before and after the Removal; apparently one source of friction between some members of the tribe and the missionaries working the new reservations was that the missionaries were abolitionists. There's a brief reference to this in Grant Foreman's THE FIVE CIVILIZED TRIBES, U. of OK Press, 1934.
| Midori
Unregistered User
(1/21/01 12:08:04 pm)
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Many thanks
Hey many thanks to both Cory Ellen and Richard for the references. I'll be in the library tomorrow and will have a look.
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CoryEllen
Registered User
(1/22/01 3:51:20 pm)
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Refs
Midori and all other interested parties,
From James Merrell, professor and general smart guy:
"My favorites are J. Leitch Wright, "The Only Land They Knew," which
has some fascinating chapters on the borrowings and crossovers, and Theda
Perdue's book on Cherokees and Slavery. There are, however, some other
good ones, more recent, especially on Seminole Indians and Africans,
the names/titles of which escape me at the moment."
Good luck in the library, Midori!
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