Week 11: From the Girl's View

      The little girl was happy.

     It was always a fun time when she and her brothers could walk upright on two legs and dance and sing. This was their time, time that belonged only to them. 

     As the only female, her brothers had demanded that she be the one to look out for their mother. They knew eventually they should probably reveal to their mom that they had human forms, not just dog forms, but for now they wanted to keep this to themselves. It was their secret, only shared with their siblings. Sometimes she could convince one of her brothers to keep watch for a bit so she could dance, but today she was content to just watch.

      Unfortunately, she hadn’t noticed that her mother hadn’t moved in several minutes, and so everyone was surprised when their mother came bursting in. She chastised them for never showing that they could change into human form, and insisted that they couldn’t become dogs anymore. The little girl and her siblings were upset for a while, but then got over it. At least in human form they were taller, and if they occasionally changed into their dog form when their mom wasn’t around… Well, what she didn’t know wouldn’t hurt her.

      The little girl knew their history, that her father was a shapeshifter who lived as a dog by day, then would turn into a man at night. When her mother had gotten pregnant, her parents, out of shame, abandoned her and convinced the village to move away. Her mother had given birth alone, and raised the girl and her brothers alone. Her father was dead, killed by her grandfather before they left.

      Now that the girl and her brothers stayed in human form all the time, their mother started to teach them how to hunt, and her brothers proved to be highly successful at this. The girl kept the house while her brothers were out, and helped deconstruct their kills. When they became successful at whale hunting, she would take the fat and treat it for household use.

     When they had a visiter, the girl knew who it was. Her mother had told them how Crow had helped her when she was abandoned, leaving a few embers that could be coaxed into a fire. Now Crow had come to investigate what was the source for all the dead whales on the beach.

     The girl and her brothers gave Crow all the food she could eat, but it was the girl’s idea to not let Crow take anything with her. She wanted some privacy for her family for just a little longer, before their existence was revealed. But Crow managed to smuggle some whale meat back to the village, and once the village learned that the brothers were such good hunters, they decided to move back and allow the brothers to be their chiefs.

     The girl was okay with this. After all, now they had more protection, and she had people to talk to that weren’t related to her. But sometimes she missed the days when it was just her and her brothers, dancing in human form before becoming dogs again.

Source

Author’s note: This isn’t my best work, but oh well. While it’s specifically mentioned in the story that there are four boys and one girl, after the mother discovers that her children can have human form, she isn’t mentioned again. The focus is on her brothers and their great ability to hunt. I thought it would be interesting to look at how the girl felt about everything. 

Reading Notes: Native American Marriage Tales, Part B

Today’s story is interesting, and is called The Dog-Husband, and is from the Tales of the North American Indians, by Stith Thompson.

Reading Notes

• In a village, a girl had a dog that she was very fond of, and that often slept at the foot of her bed.
• However, what no one knew was that at night, the dog would change into a man, and would lie with the girl, then change back into a dog before the sun rose.
• The girl eventually became pregnant, and her parents, deeply ashamed that a dog had gotten her pregnant, convinced everyone to put out their fires and tear down their house, and moved away.
• But Crow took pity on the girl, and hid away some coals for her so she would have fire.
• The girl eventually found the fire, and shortly after gave birth to five dogs: four male and one female.
• Since her dad had killed her dog, the father of these pups, she had to care for them by herself; to survive she had to dig up clams and shellfish on the beach.
• Some time passed, and the dogs grew fast and strong.
• Eventually the mother noticed that when she left the house, she often heard singing and dancing while she worked on the beach. 
• The fifth time this happened, she dressed up her clam-digger in her clothes and snuck around to the back of the house.
• She found that the dogs had all changed into human form, and that the boys were dancing and singing while their sister kept watch.
• She scolded her children, and from that point on they kept their human form.
• As the boys grew, their mother made them weapons and taught them to use them to hunt.
• From catching birds the boys quickly graduated to catching whales, and were very successful in this.
• One day, Crow noticed the smoke arising from the place where the old village had been, and let curiosity take her there.
• She saw all the whales lying on the beach, and met the grown children, who fed her as much as she wanted, but told her if she wanted more food she would have to come visit them again.
• The sister instructed Crow to cry and pretend they were dead when Crow made it back to the current village, but Crow told them the truth, and had a piece of whale meat as proof.
• Everyone in the village talked it over, and decided to go back to the old village.
• The boys became chiefs of the village and kept it supplied with whales.

Souce

Reading Notes: Mississippi/Great Lakes, Part A

For this week I chose to read The Origin of Winnebago from the Myths and Legends of the Mississippi Valley and the Great Lakes, edited by Katharine Berry Judson. “Winnebago” is a name that’s given to a group of people by another group of people.

Reading Notes

• Manabush was walking along and became hungry, and saw a bunch of waterfowl in a lake. 
• He tucked away his medicine bag that he had, then took a roll of bark and put it on his back before walking back by the lake. 
• Catching the attention of the birds, they asked him where he was going; Manabush said he was going to have a dance, and invited the birds to come with him.
• He led the birds away from the lake, then arranged the birds around him and told them to close their eyes and sing and dance, proclaiming that the first one to open his eyes would always have red eyes.
• He grabbed the birds by the neck one by one, until a small duck opened his eyes and saw what was happening.
• The duck screamed a warning to all the other birds, and they ran away to the lake.
• Manabush grabbed the small duck, and warned that he wouldn’t kill the bird, but it would always have red eyes and be the laughing stock of the other birds, and pushed it into the lake, taking its tail off.
• Manabush took the birds he’d killed and buried them with a fire on top to cook them, with only the feet and heads exposed.
• Because Manabush was tired, he told his thigh to keep watch and fell asleep.
• After a while, Indians come along and steal the birds to eat, then rebury just the heads and feet to make everything look like before.
• Manabush eventually woke up, and discovered that his birds were gone. 
• When he asked his thigh why it didn’t wake him, his thigh said it also fell asleep because it was tired, but pointed out the Indians moving away in their canoes.
• The Manabush called the thieves winnebagos, and so the Menomini have always called any thieving neighbors winnebagos.

Members of the Ho-Chunk people, called the Winnebago by some. (Source)