Caitlyn's Blog for Myth-Folklore Fall 2018

Extra Credit Reading: Crash Course Myth- More Pantheons (Part of the Indian Pantheon from the Crash Course Video ) From the start, these videos were interesting to me since I have never known much about the Indian, Norse, or African pantheons. My limited knowledge of many of the deities included in these pantheons comes from their names or likeness being included in video games that I have played. It is interesting for me to see that many of the details I have seen about these deities in video games are actually quite accurate. I had always wondered how accurately they were being portrayed. The Indian Pantheon video taught me a lot. I did not know what Sanskrit was before watching it. The idea of avatars was also quite interesting. It was also cool to see the explanation of Norse mythology and its Germanic roots which was presented in the Norse Pantheon video. It was interesting to see all of the parallels between the African Pantheons/Orishas and the mytholoy of Native Ame...

Reading Notes: Myths of the Cherokee Part B by James Mooney (Fruit bat: Image by Kdsphotos ) This section of the reading had more variety in comparison to the previous section. This section still included stories that focused on how certain animals came to be, or how they developed one of their physical traits. For example, the stories The Terrapin's Escape From The Wolves  and The Ball Game of the Birds and Animals both do this. While I still enjoyed these stories, I most liked the stories that differed from these by explicitly mentioning the Cherokee or other tribes. The stories  The Uktena and the Ulûñsû'tï and  Âgän-uni'tsï's Search for the Uktena both have more of an explicit focus on the tribes while still telling a mythical story. The idea of the Ulûñsû'tî being this powerful object that the tribes used was quite interesting. The stories mention that white men should not ever see this object, so I think it would be interesting to see what happens...

Reading Notes: Myths of the Cherokee Part A by James Mooney (Diamondback Terrapin: Image by U.S. Department of Agriculture ) I had fun reading the majority of these stories. Many of them were about creation. I found How The World Was Made to be especially interesting. In contrast to other creation stories I have read, this one often notes that no one knows who created the first of many things. This was different for me, since the creation stories I am familiar with are more certain of who or what created something. Some of the other creation stories in the unit that followed this one did not express the uncertainty that was present here. I enjoyed those other stories as well. It was interesting to see some of the details about certain animals being explained by something that happened to them that was caused by other animals. For example, the rabbit has a stubby little tail because the bear pulled the rabbit's previous tail off in How the Rabbit Stole the Otter's Coa...