Unit one. origin myths/ oral tradition

Essential questions:

1. How can we use oral stories from ancient cultures to discover what was important to them? We can tell what was important to them by reading these stories because they usually input what was important to them in the stories.

2. What oral traditions do we use, and what does it reflect about our culture? We sit at a table for dinner, that reflects our culture cares about family traditions.


Key terms:

Oral Tradition: The act of delivering important cultural information (myths, customs, history, etc.) by word of mouth
Creation Myth: A folktale that explains how the world was created.  These vary from culture to culture, and can be a good way to understand what they felt was important.

"WHAT I THINK THIS UNIT WILL COVER"

I believe unit one will cover the origion of past cultures. I  am intersted in learning how past cultures did things, i believe by reading these stories i can get a good idea of the way they lived. I also think this unit covers the ancient myths of the bc era, which i am also intersted in learning.

"EARLY NATIVE AMERICANS"

Smith described the interactions of the colonists with different Native American tribes beginning with the battle upon arrival in Jamestown. Smith detailed his exploration of the land and involvement with different tribes and tribal leaders, which resulted in trading practices that sustained the colony. He noted that Powhatan and his people sent deer, bread, corn, turkeys, and other supplies during his stay in the colony. Smith also described being captured, injured, and rescued from certain Native American tribes. He was witness to healing ceremonies and learned more about native trading practices. Internal fighting, sickness, and changes in leadership plagued the colony, but Smith ended the relation with optimism concerning its survival. This work was first published under the title True Relation on 13 August 1608


This is a great example of both oral tradition and creation myth. John Smith described some of the tribes traditions like witnessing a healing ceremony. In the Powhatan culture changes in leadership often plagued the colony along with sickness and internal fighting.


"THE EARTH ON THE TURTLES BACK"

 Dreams were important to the Onandaga people. You can tell because the chief gatthered everyone to try and make this dream come true, he even strained and strained more to uproot the tree.

"This is very sad," he said, "for it is a

dream of great power and we must do all we can to make it come true."

"APACHE MYTH 2 OF CREATION OF THE EARTH"
     

The myth i read was from the apache indians. They believed in four gods but only one creator. They believed it all started in complete darkness then suddenly a white and yellow disk appeard with a small man with a beard, that was the "creator". He is the one that created light in the beginning and he looked down and created colours, yellow streaks of dawn to the east, and many colours on the west. clouds of different colours also emerged. "the creator" then created three other gods. A little girl, a small boy and a sun god.
     Then he created celestial phenomena which was the winds and the tarantula. Out of the creators palms the four gods sweat mixxed together formed a little brown ball the size of a bean, that would eventually form to the earth. It formed to the earth by the work of the tarantula and the wind together. The wind went inside and blew the brown ball up, and the tarantula spun its cord on each end of the earth and stretched it untill it was immeasurable size, and then it became earth. Then the Creator created the rest of the beings and features of the Earth.
     Some similairties of this myth to others i have read in this unit is that there is always one creator, and many gods. However in my culture more people believe in one god. I could tell from this myth that small boys and little girls were probably important to the apache tribe considering they believed that they were created from "the creator" as gods. The tarantula, and the wind is probably also very important to the apache people considering the myth is that they created the earth. A similarity to my culture from theres is that we believ that there was a creator that created the earth and it didnt just pop up.



The influence of traditional literature to america annalyzed in this blog was the story of john smith and pocahontas. John smith discovered this new land and it described what he went through and how early native american culture was. American fiction was formed through myth's of earlier tribes. I also showed some styles and forms of poetry in the stories.