Skip to main content

Reading Notes: Chinook Wind


Hi There! 


This week I chose to read the Pacific North West Unit. I took notes over "Why There Are No Snakes On Takhoma," "Chinook Wind," and "How Silver Fox Created the World"  because I thought they would be the stories that I could adapt well. Of those I have included here my notes over "Chinook Wind" that I took while reading. 

  • Chinook Brothers (5):
    • Warm Wind
    • Lived on Great River
  • Walla Walla Brothers (5):
    • Cold Winds
    • Walla Walla = “the meeting of the waters”        
  • Grandparents live at Umatilla “the place of the wind-drifted sands”
  • The brothers fighting caused hardship for the people.
    • “blew down trees and raised great clouds of dust”
  • Walla Walla Brothers suggested they wrestle and whoever loses gets their head chopped off
  • Coyote was the judge of the contest
  • Coyote told the Chinook Grandparents to put oil on the ground
  • Coyote told the Walla Walla grandparents to put ice on the ground
  • The ground was slippery
  • Walla Walla Grandparents got the ice down after the oil
  • Chinook Brothers lost – lost their heads
  • Oldest Chinook has a son “Young Chinook”
  • Son was raised to avenge their deaths
  • Young Chinook went to see his grandparents
  • Chinook Grandparents were cold and hungry
  • Walla Walla Brothers
    • Caused North east (cold) wind to always blow
    • Stole Chinook Grandparent’s Fish
  • Young Chinook takes grandfather fishing
    • kept the Walla Walla brothers from steeling the fish
  • Walla Walla Brothers Challenged Young Chinook to wrestle (same deal)
  • This time Coyote gave the same advice, but told the Chinook Grandparents to throw the oil last
  • The walla walla brothers lost, four fell down one yielded
  • The four were killed, the one was spared
  • Coyote told the last Walla Walla that he could only blow lightly and never freeze people  again
  • Coyote told Young Chinook that he would blow the hardest at night, and blow first on the mountain ridges to “warn the people”

“Thus, now winter is only a little cold” 

From this story, I could write a story about two families that are partners in a company. The grandparents are old and have retired. The grandsons are preparing to take charge in the company but there is a dispute over who should be the highest in charge. They agree to decide the rank by a competition of some sort that is judged by some person... maybe the family lawyer? 

Another way to approach the story would be from the Coyote's position. I would like to explore his motivations for telling the grandparents how to rig the competition without choosing a side the first time, but then told them how to rig it and chose a side the second time. Maybe at first he thought the competition was ridiculous and it wouldn't matter who won, but after he saw how bad the cold winds were he changed his mind and wanted the warm winds to win. 

Either would make a good story and are possibilities for the story this week. The photo I included at the top is of a coyote in Yosemite National Park, California. This is what I imagine the judging coyote would have looked like. I think I will use it in my story if I choose this story to base my own story on.


Bibliography

Photo Credit: By Christopher Bruno via Wikimedia Commons
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Reading Notes: Japanese Fairy Tales, Part B

Hi! I missed the second reading for this week, so I am making it up today with these reading notes over Japanese fairy tales. This reading included three stories, one of and Ogre, a Goblin, and a Princess not unlike the story of Cinderella. All three of these are from Japanese Fairy Tales by Yei Theodora Ozaki, who is pictured above with her husband. Out of the three stories, I liked the story about the Princes Hase the best, so I took notes over that story specifically. Here are those notes. The story of Princess Hase is told from a third person perspective. In the story there is very little dialogue. In fact, the only dialogue in the pieces, is that of the step-mother right before her poisoning attempt backfires and at the end when Hase’s father finds her hiding in the mountains. I think that this sparing use of dialogue at the worst and best point in the story is an interesting style choice that creased a stronger connection to the story at those points. I think that ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Reading Notes: Persian Tales Part A

Hello!  This week I chose to read the Persian Tales unit and was not disappointed. Some of these fairy tales like “The Boy Who Became a Bulbul” and “The Wolf-Aunt” reminded me of the Brother’s Grim Fairytales in their more original forms. The others seemed a little more child friendly like we might expect of fairytales today. Thinking of my story for this week, any of them could make a fun base for writing, but I think that the ones that would be the best to work with would be “The Boy Who Became a Bulbul,” “Nim Tanak,” or “Muhammad Tirandaz, The Archer.” For “The Boy Who Became a Bulbul” I would make the circumstances of the boy’s death make more sense to a modern reader, not just based on a bet with his father that he willingly submits to. I would also want to somehow bring the boy back, maybe instead of the Bulbul growing out of the stalk, he does. Or maybe his father doesn’t kill him but hides him instead. Either way I would like for the boy to live. For “Nim T...
Post a Comment
Read more

Week 13 Review: Home Stretch

Hi there! I don't know about anyone else in this class but I am busting my butt to finish these assignments up so I can get an A in the class. Staying in the holiday spirit, I am so thankful for the extra week (Week 15). Because of it, I don't have to cram a bunch of extra credit assignments into next week, but instead can work on mostly standard assignments. I also caught a previous assignment that I did, but didn't do the declaration for so that was a nice treat to start this week off with. I took the time to read through the announcements for the last seven days, and that has thankfully helped me understand how class is working over the next couple weeks and what finishing up looks like for me. As I was looking through said announcements, I was completely distracted by the blurb about St. Catherine. My full name is Catherine and I come from a Catholic family, but I had never heard of her in detail. So I spent quite a while reading about her on Wikipedia and found out t...
Post a Comment
Read more