Reading Diary A: California and the Old Southwest

California and the Old Southwest

 

Native American storytelling time

Spider’s Creation:

This Native American story of creation was very interesting in the fact that the world was created by a spider named Sussistinnako. Such a long name that I probably mispronounced it. Sussistinnako created two women who were the mothers of all living things by singing near two parcels. He also created Cloud People, Lighting People, Thunder People, and Rainbow People. This story explained where every element of life came from as well as the sun, the moon, and the stars.

Creation of Man:

The thought of man being created by animals is an interesting idea. Throughout this story, each animal wanted to create man to be very much like themselves except for the coyote who had completed making the world. The coyote did not want to create man to be like him but to have different structures of every other animal. During the meeting about how man should be, all the animals quarreled with one another and began making their own vision of man from pieces of earth. The cunning coyote stayed up all night creating man like how he mentioned earlier and sabotaged the other animals’ creation. Soon man was created by the coyote.

 

Coyote looking off in the distance

Old Man Above and the Grizzlies:

Native American’s have a story that give an explanation for nearly everything in the world. This particular story gives the reason why grizzlies usually walk on all four legs except when they fight. It also introduces a new race of men which was interesting since they were created by a Grizzly and the Little Daughter.