Skip to main content

Reading Notes: Blackfoot Unit, Part A

Hi!
This week I chose to read the Blackfoot Unit. Of the stories, I enjoyed the "The Wolf Man" and "The Camp of the Ghosts" the most. In both of these stories I enjoyed the morality and lessons that the plot seemed to support. They reminded me of Aesop's Fables although they seemed to be more complicated lessons than those addressed by Aesop's. For a story this week, I would like to use similar plot lines to convey similar lessons and morals. Additionally, the view into Blackfoot society and culture was interesting. I would like to do my best to maintain the aspects of their culture in my story. I think that to make it original I could gender swap the characters, or modernize the tale. I have paper notes that I took while reading the stories that I can review when it it time to write my own story. Here are just some of the plot points that I wrote down for each of the stories. 

"The Wolf Man"
  • The two wives are lazy and only socialize
  • The man moves them away from other people 
  • The wives get lonely/angry and trap the man in a pit
  • The women return to camp and say he never came back from hunting 
  • Wolves and other animals find the man and help him 
  • Old blind wolf is powerful - heals him and transforms his head and hands into those of a wolf
  • Wolf man helps wolves steel food from the humans
  • Humans know it is a wolf man that is taking the food
  • They trap him and he tells them what his wives did 
  • The humans think the wives should be punished and they are never seen again 
"The Camp of the Ghosts"
  • Man's wife dies and he is inconsolable
  • He leaves his son with the grandmother and goes to find his wife 
  • He meets an old woman that tells him to find another old woman and gives him mysterious things 
  • The second old woman calls his relations from the ghost camp and tells him to go with them but keep his eyes closed or he will not return
  • He goes to his father-in-law who says he must stay there for four days, then his wife will carry the worm pipe and they will travel back for four days to the old woman's place 
  • On the last day of travel the man can open his eyes and the wife is alive and with him
  • When they get back to the camp they have to sweat themselves clean of the ghost world
  • The father-in-law warned that if the husband ever harmed or threatened his wife she would disappear again 
  • This came to pass sometime later when he raised a hot iron like he was going to strike her 
A picture that I could use for the story would be this one of an angry Blackfoot woman if I wrote a story like "The Wolf Man"



Bibliography

Waiting and Mad, Charles Marion Russell, 1899. Painting of a Blackfoot woman. [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons



Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Introduction

Hello!  My name is Cat and although this will be a blog about mythology and folklore, today I want to tell you all a little bit about myself and my summer. So, to start off I am a civil engineering student here at the University of Oklahoma. I will be graduating in December, but I will be staying on for another year to complete my master’s degree, also in civil engineering but with a focus on structural engineering. Civil engineering includes the design of buildings, infrastructure, water supply systems, waste water treatment systems, and traffic control systems to name a few.  Over this summer I had the opportunity to work as an intern for a civil engineering company and learned a lot from the experience. I learned to design pump stations, outline drainage areas, how to do the runoff calculations for inlets, culverts and drainage ditches, and a bunch of stuff about low impact development, but most importantly I learned that I don’t like doing any of those things....
7 comments
Read more

Famous Last Words: Migraines

Hey there! As you may have guessed already because this is an extra credit post, I fell behind last week. This time partially due to procrastination and partially due to a migraine. It was great. Let me tell you about it.  I had been feeling really great all week, getting my work done, not too stressed, and like usual I was planning to do the three weekend assignments on Sunday. Yes, I know I shouldn't wait until the last day to do them. Yes, I know this whole thing could have been avoided by doing them early, but hey, hind sight, spilled milk, you know the drill. Plus, I didn't have any other homework due on Monday, unlike usual, so I thought I would have plenty of time. (Here is where the ominous music should play.) However, that afternoon I started having a migraine attack. This quickly spiraled into me sitting and staring at the wall until it stopped later that night. Sadly, I didn't get much work done, as you can imagine.  Luckily I am back on my feet today, alth...
Post a Comment
Read more

Week 2 Story: The Stone Woman

Author's note: I wrote this story after reading Pygmalion and wanting to develop on the statues story. So this story gives the statue a back story, and rewrites some of the original tale, in the form of my character named Ivory. I hope you enjoy it.  In ancient Greece there was a woman named Ivory that had grown up in a village far from any city. Her family farmed the land around their home and raised livestock. When she was older, her father would take her with him on the long journey to the city when it was time to sell their crops at the market. One year at the market, Ivory met the most beautiful man she had ever seen. This man’s name was Deveron, and he was known widely for his charm and beauty. Soon after they met, Deveron and Ivory fell in love and were married.  They built a small home on the land Ivory’s family owned and continued to farm the land and live good lives that seemed to be blessed by the gods. They were so happy in their love and in their life th...
3 comments
Read more