Reading Dairy B: Marriage Tales

Marriage Tales

Woman Stolen By Killer Whales: A man and woman were out fishing one day and caught a strange looking fish. The woman cut the fish up and went to wash her hands in the water. When she put her hands in the water, killer whales had dragged her into the water for killing their friend. The man followed the trail to find his wife. He got the help of Shark to find his wife. Shark distracted the killer whales and got the woman and swam away. The man and woman looked back to see Shark fighting of the killer whales.

The Rolling Head: A man lived with his wife and two kids in a small tent. Every day he would go hunting, but before he left, he would paint his wife's face and body. When the man would leave, the wife would go to the lake and have an affair with a snake. The man was curious as to how the woman got the paint off and decided to hide by the lake. He saw that his wife was cheating and killed her and the snake. He cut up the wife and cooked her for the children and left. The wife's head rolled in and scared the children. The children ran off and hid in the woods protected by bears and panthers. Villagers heard that the children had plenty of food so they went to live with them. The father eventually showed up and the children set a lion on him.

(Snake, Source: UnTextbook)

The Dog-Husband: A young girl slept with her dog at the foot of her bed. At night, the dog would turn into a human and by morning, transform back into a dog. When the girl became pregnant, her parents knew that it was the dog. The village people burnt the house to the ground, killed the dog, and left the girl. The girl gave birth to pups and provided for them. The girl found out that the pups could turn into humans and made them help provide for the family. The boy-pups became very good whale hunters and a crow came over to see what the smell was. The crow saw that there was plenty of food and tricked the villagers into coming back. The boy-pups became the chief of tribe.

Reading Diary A: Marriage Tales

Native American Marriage Tales

The Piqued Buffalo Wife: A man took advatange of a buffalo-cow and she gave birth to his son. The son grew up and would play with the children in the Indian camps and disappear at night. He wanted to find his father so he went to the chief and picked out his father in a group of men. The child took the man to his mother and they lived happily for several years. The man got angry with his wife and struck her with a hot stick. The wife and son turned into buffalo and ran away. The man was upset and went to find his family. He found the buffalo chief and was told that he had to identify his son four times in order to get his family back. On the last time, the man got it wrong and was trampled by the herd. The wife, the son, and an old bull stayed behind and found a bone that wasn't trampled and brought the man back to life.

(Headdress, Source:UnTextbook)

Bear-Woman and Deer-Woman: Grizzly Bear and Doe were both married to Chickenhawk. When they went to the river to make food, they decided to hunt each other's head for lice. Grizzly Bear said she found lice and bit Doe's head off. She went home with the head and food and cooked the head in the oven. Doe's children knew something had happened so they killed Grizzly Bear's children when they were playing. Bear-Woman found out that her children were killed and went after the fawns. Crane was fishing and let the fawns use his neck as a bridge to cross safely. Grizzly Bear followed and when she went across, Crane twisted his neck and Grizzly Bear fell in the water and drifted away.

Splinter-Foot-Girl: A group of men were out camping when one scratched his leg on a thorny plant. His leg swelled and out came a baby girl. The men loved the girl very much. A bull heard that there was a young girl and sent a magpie to the men for her hand in marriage. The men refused and the bull tried and tried again. The third time he sent a red bird and the men finally consented. The girl went to the bull and they lived together with the herd. The men wanted the girl back and had a mole and a badger steal the girl back. A tree hid the men and the girl in its branches. The buffalo herd went searching and found them and tried knocking the tree over. The buffalo got his horn stuck in the tree and the men killed him. A rock then wanted to take the girl as his wife. But because he abused his previous wives, the animals begged them to run. They tried outrunning the rock, but he overcame them. The girl told him that he was to leave people alone and to be found where the hills are. Her and the men went to the sky peacefully.

Commenting Review Week

I feel like I'm making pretty good connections with the class.  I think that talking about what you have in common with your classmates is a good common ground to start a connection. The comments that have really helped me improve my storytelling posts have been very helpful. I don't do any commenting in any of my other classes. My major isn't one that peer comments are generally important.

(A little motivation, Source: Meme Generator)

Writing Review Week

I think my best writing this semester have been my storytelling posts. I feel that some of the stories are written pretty well. My goal for the rest of the semester is to simply improve my writing. I think a good strategy is to think of what you're passionate about and to apply it to your story. Or think of something completely silly and make it work (that's always more fun and creative anyways). The feedback that I have received has been helping me improve my writing. Anything really helps! SO keep sending it! I chose this picture because it comes from the story that I think I did the best on.

(Bully, Source:Vegan Bits) 

Reading Review Week

My favorite readings so far have probably been from The Persian Tales. I really liked the stories. They were very interesting and I like how a lot of them included some type of animal. The story from that unit that caught my attention was "Susku and Mushu." It was very odd... The strategies that worked best for me was to go through and read the stories from the unit and when I found one that I really enjoyed, I would immediately go and write about it in my reading diary. I use the reading diaries when I do the storytelling assignment. I love to read in my spare time, but since class is going on, I really haven't had as much time to read as I'd like. I don't think there is an overlap in the things that I read in class and out of class. There aren't any connections from the readings to any other classes that I'm taking. My advice for future students is to GET AHEAD. Whenever you have any free time, get some reading done. I would take my iPad to class and whenever I had some free time between classes, I would always read some stories. I chose this picture because it came from one of my favorite stories from The Persian Unit. 

(Wolf, source: UnTextbook)

Extra Reading Diary: South African Folktales

South African Folktales

The Lost Message: The ants are prey to may different creatures. The different varieties of ants decided to make their homes in different places. The red ants made their home on the ground and the rice-ants lived under ground, but anteater ate them anyways. The Wagtail ants lived in trees but birds and centipede ate them. The gray ants tried flying away but birds and insects were much faster. The king ant sent a message for all the ants to unify again but the message was lost because a beetle failed to deliver.

The Monkey's Fiddle: Monkey went to work for his uncle because food was scarce. After a while, Monkey wanted to return home and his uncle thanked him with a bow and arrow that could kill anything and a fiddle that will make anybody dance. He shot a dear with his bow and arrow and shared the meal with Wolf. Wolf wanted the bow and arrow and accused Monkey of stealing it when Jackal was around. Jackal decided to hold onto until there was a trial. Everybody came to the trial and Jackal lied so that he could keep the bow and arrow for himself. Monkey was to be hung, but he played his fiddle and everybody started dancing. They were all begging him to stop and he did when Wolf admitted that he lied. The animals were afraid that he would start playing again, so they fled.

(Vervet Monkey, Source:UnTextbook)

The Tiger, The Ram, and The Jackal: Tiger was on his way home when he ran into a strange creature named, Ram. He ran all the way home in fright and told Jackal. Jackal thought he was foolish and decided that they would go eat Ram the next day. Ram saw them and went to his wife and she said to take the child and pinch him and make cry like he is hungry. Jackal tied himself to Tiger so Tiger wouldn't run away. Ram said that Jackal did a good job in bringing food home for his child. Tiger was so frightened that he ran away and dragged Jackal along with him.

Week 7 Storytelling: Anansi and Nothing

Author's Note: In the original story of "Anansi and Nothing," Anansi and Nothing were on their way to town to find wives. Anansi persuaded Nothing to change clothes. Now that Anansi was dressed in fine clothes, he found many wives while Nothing only found a wife because a woman felt bad for him. They all walked back home and when the wives saw Anansi's shack they were all disappointed. They decided to live with Nothing and his wife. Anansi was furious and decided to kill Nothing. After many attempts, Anansi finally succeeded. I decided to rewrite it because I didn't like the character Anansi or how the story ended. I don't like how Anansi took advantage of his friend and then got mad at him and tried killing him multiple times.

Anansi and Nothing
Anansi was a very poor man. He lived in a little run down shack while his friend, Nothing, lived in a lovely palace nearby. One day, they decided to go a few towns over to find some wives.

Nothing was dressed in a very nice, velvet jacket while Anansi wore a ragged cotton one. On the way to town, Anansi asked, "Do you mind if we switch clothes for a bit? I'm starting to feel a bit chilly."

"Well of course!" replied Nothing. "You don't want to catch a cold on the way to meet our future wives." So they switched clothes and on they went, continuing their journey.

As they were nearing the town, Nothing asked to switch clothing again. Anansi evaded the question and said "Actually, I'm still a little cold..." Nothing felt sorry for him and let him continue wearing the jacket.

By the time they got to town, it was too late to trade clothes. Anansi was dressed magnificently and didn't have any troubles finding a wife. In fact, he found multiple wives to take home with him.

Poor Nothing was stuck in the ragged jacket and was being overlooked. Until a sweet woman came towards him and started talking to him. They talked for ages and she decided to be his wife. She didn't care that he looked poor. She liked him for him.

So Nothing and his wife and Anansi and all of his wives all walked back home together. At the split of the road, where Nothing and Anansi would part, Anansi took off the jacket and said, "Thanks for the jacket Nothing! I really owe you one!"

Anansi continued walking but instead of going towards the palace, he walked straight to the run down shack. Nothing and his wife walked hand-in-hand towards the palace. Anansi's wives were furious.

They went with Anansi anyways, but the six wives and Anansi had to share one small bedroom and they barely had anything to eat. Nothing's wife felt sorry for her friends and invited them over for dinner.

The wives joined Nothing and his wife for dinner and saw how great he treated her. He surprised her with flowers, pulled her chair out for her at dinner, and looked at her adoringly.

The wives realized that Anansi didn't treat any of them like that and that they deserved better. After dinner, they marched back to the hut and told him that they were all leaving him.

Anansi was furious. He thought of many ideas to kill Nothing, but none of his plans worked. He decided to dig a hole in front of Nothing's door and fill it with sharp knives.

He banged on the door and shouted for Nothing to come out. But Nothing's wife begged him to stay inside.

After a few minutes, Anansi grew impatient. He was so frustrated that he started pacing and mistakenly walked right into the hole. He was so wounded that he died almost immediately.

(Velvet Jacket, Source:Dark Brown Hairs) 

Bibliography: "Anansi and Nothing" from West African Folktales by William H. Barker and Cecilia Sinclair (1917).