Week 9 Reading: Native American Marriage Tales Unit

For my week nine reading, I decided to explore the “NativeAmerican Marriage Tales Unit" by Stith Thompson.This unit was a lot different than what I expected it to be. The stories involved humans that could transform into animals (or vise-verse), unique families and hidden morals and/or life messages.

After reading the first half of the unit, I was surprised how violent and sad the stories were. Many of the stories dealt with death or killings.

In contrast, one aspect that I loved was the idea of animals being in-control of humans. I laughed when I thought about animals bossing us around.

One story that really stuck out to me was “The Fox-Woman.” In this story, a man would leave his house to hunt everyday. When he returned, he noticed that his house was always clean and different than the way he left it. One day, he saw a fox go into his house. After peering through the window, he saw the most beautiful woman cleaning his house.

I love the idea of animals transforming into humans. I feel like this could be a really fun aspect to include in my personal story for this week.

Another story that caught my attention was “The Woman Stolen By Killer Whales.” In this story, a wife and husband were fishing and accidentally caught a whale. After killing the creature, the wife went to wash her hands off and a whale dragged her down into the deep blue ocean. In the end, sharks came to their rescue and saved the man and wife!

Killer Whale by Bill Reid

I loved the idea of a man following his wife when she was in danger. I thought it was so cool how the sharks were on the human’s side and killed the whales so that they could be safe.

For my story this week, I would love to write about a wife or husband that could turn into an animal. I think it would be fun to incorporate talking trees or the mystery of the ocean such as the stories I read. I am interested to read the second half of this unit tomorrow.