Week 9 Reading Diary: Myths and Legends of the Great Plains

This week I read Myths and Legends of the Great Plains by Katharine Judson (1913). I was really excited about getting to read some Native American stories. My favorite from the first half of the reading was the creation story. I always like creation stories because every culture has one and they are all extremely unique even though they have certain things in common at times.

This particular great plains creation story from the Osage (Wazhá zhe group) people featured an elk who helped all the animals live on earth. I really liked that the animals could fly/float. I definitely want to write a story at some point this semester that involves flying. Everyone knows that flying dreams are the best kind, so I want to be sure and bring that fun aspect into a storytelling post.

The elk in the story is totally awesome because everyone trusts him so much. He allows the animals to live in a place that is covered in water and he provides the seeds for plants and vegetables. Obviously, the elk is really important to this culture.

In the Osage (Hoga group) creation story, the animals relied on the crawfish to provide land to live on after a few other animals had drowned. I liked this simple story, but there was no flying involved so that was a slight disappointment.

elk