Storytelling Week 10: Thunderbirds Abound

A long time ago in the far North, thunderbirds lived prosperously. After a while, there weren't that many of them (four to be exact). They decided to make their home on the top of a mountain overlooking the Yukon.

Once they had made their home safe and sound on the mountaintop, their numbers gradually grew more and more. The parents would fly down from high up the mountain and wreak havoc for the locals. They would take livestock, huge amounts of fish from the lake, and even a fisherman or two. Because of their actions, they developed a horrible reputation.

Now you must keep in mind these birds were massive. Much larger than any bird the locals saw on a regular basis. They flew with such speed that their curved, razor-sharp talons would flash in the sky like lightning cracking in the clouds. Their screeches were so loud that it could be heard extremely far away and echoed across the still, Northern landscape. This is why the natives called them thunderbirds.

How natives saw the thunderbirds.

One day, a hunter grew tired of his wife and children living in fear for their lives because of the winged beasts. After all, it hadn't been safe for them to do the things they needed to sustain themselves for quite some time. So he took his bow and a few larger-than-necessary arrows and headed towards the thunderbird nest. 

When he got there, he was shocked to find not one nest, but many nests, all filled with growing thunderbirds. He realized he wouldn't have enough arrows to kill all of them, so he improvised. He figured these birds couldn't fly just yet, so he took out his trusty flint and rock and tried to spark the nests. After he got the first one to catch, he repeated the same thing with all the other nests. He watched contentedly as each nest burned, and he felt a weight lift from his shoulders as he realized his peoples' troubles were gone. He started towards his village to tell the people what he had accomplished. 

What he didn't realize is that there were still more thunderbirds flying around away from where they usually were. By the time the birds were back to their nests, the hunter was long gone. They cried out feverishly, but realized finding and killing whoever did this wasn't worth dealing with until their numbers grew again. So the thunderbirds wait patiently, circling the mountain and surrounding areas for food. They cry out often and loudly to remind the people they are there. And this is why the thunder on the mountain seems to crack so often.

Author's Note: I chose The Last of the Thunderbirds as my story inspiration, from the Alaskan Legends unit. In the original, the hunter goes to the mountain and kills all the birds with arrows. There's also no mention of them sounding like thunder or anything of that nature, I just added that in there cause it seemed like something a non-advanced civilization would make up to explain thunder or lightning. 

Bibliography:

"The Last of the Thunderbirds."

Myths and Legends of Alaska, edited by Katharine Berry Judson (1911).

Reading Diary B: Alaskan Legends

So continuing with the Alaskan Legends unit, here are my thoughts on a few stories.

The Origin of Winds is an Eskimo legend from the Lower Yukon. To keep the summary short, a doll that a man and his wife made adventured to the edge of the world where the sky and the earth meet. The sky is a wall according to this story, and the doll found a hole in the "sky wall" and cut a bigger hole with his knife. He told the East Wind to blow through the whole sometimes a lot, sometimes a little, and sometimes not at all. He repeated this 4 more times with the west, southwest, south, and northwest. And then he returned to his village.

And finally, to keep the topic of origins going, I read The Boy in the Moon. A boy falls in love with his friend's sister. One day the girl climbed a ladder to the sky. The boy saw her after being yelled at by his brothers (I'm not sure if this kid is in love with his sister or is in a different family entirely), and chased after her. She floated away, and the girl became the sun and the boy became the moon. The sun and moon are in opposite sides at all times because no matter how much the boy pursues her, he can never catch up to her (the sun).

They're never together.

Source

Reading Diary A: Alaskan Legends

For Week 10 (only a few more weeks to go!), I'm doing Alaskan Legends for my unit of choice.

The first story I really enjoyed was The Origin of the Tides. There have been lots of stories that explain why nature works the way it does, but this was the first one I've seen that explained the tides, which I thought was super interesting! Basically, Qa (Raven) found a rock in the middle of the earth, built a house under it, and put a hole and door through it that controlled the levels of the ocean. When it was open, the low tide would come in. When it was closed, high tides were in. I thought this was a clever way to explain why the tides work the way they do since they didn't know about the moon controlling it at the time!

One thing I found curious as well was the fact that Raven is what I gathered to be their God character. In the beginning of the unit, he is described as a bird that can change into a man whenever he wants. It also turns out that Raven was responsible for creating everything, from the ground man walks on to the animals that live in the world. Kind of an interesting animal for them to choose as God!

I also liked Bringing of Light by Raven. For a while, only the light of stars lit up the northern land. The shamans tried to bring it back, but Raven (disguised as a young boy) mocks them and says he can bring it back easily. Raven found the reason there was no light in his village, and stole the ball of light from a man who lived alone in a hut. As he flew away, he broke off pieces of the light, mixing dark and light throughout. Again, this is a really interesting way to explain the ways their world worked. We now know why Alaska has long stretches of darkness and daytime, but that must have been really odd for them back then!

The Midnight Sun in Alaska, where it doesn't set for nearly two and a half months.

Credit: University of Alaska Fairbanks