Reading Notes: Cherokee Myths, Part B

    This week I chose to read the Cherokee Myths unit. The stories I read are from Myths of the Cherokee by James Mooney. I thought this unit was pretty good at first when I was reading through the Reading A stories. When I got to the Reading B stories, I did not seem to find interest in most of the stories. However, there were some stories that I did find interesting.

    The first story I enjoyed was The Race Between the Crane and the Hummingbird. The story was about a woman who loved the hummingbird because he was handsome and not the crane because he was awkward. The crane was very persistent, so the woman told them that whoever travelled around the world and back first that she would marry them. The hummingbird was very confident that he would win but each night the crane seemed to pass him and eventually became a whole day ahead of him. The crane won fair and square, but the woman told him that she could not marry someone so ugly, so she remained single. I felt bad for the crane because he worked so hard during the race. I liked this story because it was easy and interesting to read.

    The stories The Owl Gets Married and The Huhu Gets Married were quite similar in their plots. The daughter in the owl story had to marry a hunter and the daughter in the huhu story had to a hard worker. The hunter lied about how he could hunt and the only thing he was good at was turning into an owl. The hard worker lied about his work and the only thing he could do was turn into a huhu. In both stories, the husbands were thrown out. I liked these stories because the animals could turn themselves into humans. 

Owl from the Story