Extra Reading Diary: Chinese Fairy Tales

Unit: Chinese Fairy Tales

READING B:

The Little Hunting Dog

• there was a scholar who hated being around people, so lived in a Buddhist temple
• awww this story was so cute yet so sad
• so the little tiny knights left behind a tiny dog that kept gnats from annoying the scholar at night
• then one day while the scholar was taking nap, he accidentally squished it to death. 

Fox-Fire

• a man caught a fox preparing the elixir of life using fox fire
• the man caught the ball and swallowed it, giving himself the ability to connect to the spirit world
• he used his ability to help people and he gained many gifts from it
• thirty years later, the fox came and took back its ball

The Talking Silver Foxes

• the silver foxes had the form of a normal fox, except it was yellow/red/white colored and could talk
• there was a fox that liked to toy with wanderers and one day, a man managed to whip the fox
• the fox spirit ended up possessing a woman and said the only person who it feared was the man who had the ox-tail whip
• so the villagers went and got the man and he killed it

Retribution

• there was a young boy named Ma whose father accidentally killed another man 
• once the young boy grew up, he saw the spirit of the dead man coming back and became born into a wealthy family 
• when the little boy grew up, he threw some rocks at some birds and accidentally struck Ma
• this story was about how karma will always get you in the end

The Night on the Battlefield

• this story was about a merchant who came across a small in late at night
• it turns out the inn was full of dead spirits

The Maiden Who Was Stolen Away

• an ogre who was masquerading as a young scholar captured a young maiden and placed her at the top of a pagoda
• she couldn't escape
• however, she saw a wanderer who happened to be her neighbor and caught his attention
• he couldn't tell who she was, but he was suspicious she was his neighbor's child
• so he went to the family and the youngest brother managed to save his sister by killing the ogre

The Sorcerer of the White Lotus Lodge

• there was a great sorcerer who was quite cruel to his pupils
• he had them do various mundane tasks that were related to his journey
• when the families of the pupils inquired about them, they found out that the sorcerer kept them there
• so the father of one boy asked the city official to capture the sorcerer and put him and his family into jail 
• however, the people how were transporting the sorcerer got tricked and the sorcerer got away

The Three Evils

• there was a young man named Dschou Tschu who was strong yet was a savage of sorts
• the people called him one of the three evils 
• a new mandarin came to town and told him about him being one of the three evils
• D.T. went and killed the other two evils
• then he offered himself as a soldier and killed himself in battle 

Yang Gui Fe

• Yang Gui Fe was the beautiful wife of the emperor, Ming Huang. 
• the emperor loved her so much that he did whatever she said
• she wanted to bring in her cousin, who brought many troubles to the monarchy
• soon the emperor was cast out and the soldiers wanted Yang Gui Fe and her cousin killed
• the emperor had no choice and had the two killed
• then he heard of a man who was able to speak to dead people
• the man went to look for YGF's spirit and found her as a blessed fairy
• YGF then gave him her half of the ring that matched the emperors and promised to see the emperor soon

Yang Gui Fei

Source: UN-Textbook. 

Week 9 Storytelling: The Legend of the Great Coyote

Once upon a time, when Earth was young and newly created by Old Mole, there was a tribe of Indians. They were humans. Humans created by The Great Man. The Indians were different from the other animals. Unlike the other animals, The Great Man created humans with a thin layer of bare skin, with no fur to keep them warm or protect them from the elements. However, the land scorched their fragile bodies. This was because up in the sky, there were nine glowing orbs that rained rays of heat down onto Earth. They were smaller than the Sun we see today. They orbs were the nine Brother Suns and they were very close to the Earth. They were created by the Great Coyote so that there would be light on Earth. 

As the days went by, the temperature became hotter and hotter to the point where, if the Indians ventured out of their homes, they would be scorched to death in only one hour. The Great Man saw what had happened to his precious humans and wept, for he had made a mistake. He should have known better than to create the humans with no way to protect themselves from the heat. All of the other animals were fine because they had hair on their bodies that shielded them from the sweltering heat. 

The Great Man then thought of a solution for he knew he did not have the power to take down the Brother Suns. He sought out the Great Coyote and asked of him to kill eight of the nine Brother Suns in order to maintain the light, but reduce the heat. At first, the Great Coyote was unwilling. He had exerted great efforts into putting the Brother Suns into the sky and did not want to go through the trouble of destroying them when they were his own creations. The Great Man then made a deal with Great Coyote. In exchange for the salvation of his people, they would worship the Great Coyote as their savior. As their savior, he would be presented with offerings of food, meaning that he would no longer have to hunt for his meals. 

The Great Coyote agreed to the deal. He then crouched down very low onto his haunches and leaped high up in the sky, grabbed one Sun with his paws, and used his teeth to crush it. He repeated the same motion seven times in order to get rid of eight of the nine Brother Suns.

 The last Sun feared that he would be subject to the same fate and tried to run away. He did not get very far, but far enough that The Great Coyote could not reach him. However, The Great Coyote's job was done. The Sun did not have to worry because The Great Coyote had intended to leave one Sun left. However, because the remaining Sun was so far away, its light was weak. To fix that problem, The Great Coyote gathered the shattered pieces of the Sun's brothers and threw them at the Sun. The pieces of his brothers merged with the Sun and made him bigger, which made his light grow stronger and it reached the Earth without burning it. 

The Great Man cried tears of joy as his people ventured out of their caves, some for the very first time. From then on, the people worshipped The Great Coyote as their hero. 

Coyote Portrait.

"Coyote Portrait" by Kyoht Luterman, 2004. Source: DeviantArt.

Author's Note: For this week, I retold a small part of one of the Three Coyote Creation Stories, "Coyote and Old Mole." I wanted to spin a tale based on the nine suns rather than write about the entire story itself. 

In the original story, there was an Old Mole who created the Earth. Then The Great Man created the people. The Indians were cold, so the Coyote got them the White Fire stone that brought them heat. Then there were nine suns that were so hot that the Coyote had to destroy eight of them in order to save the world from burning up. There also happened to be nine moons that brought coldness into the world. The Coyote also destroyed the eight moons to prevent Indians from freezing at night. The story then shifts to telling us about a boy who died. Due to his death, the people wept so much that it created a flood, killing everyone except one couple. 

My story differs in that I did not use the entire story, just a little bit of the beginning and the part about the nine suns. I wanted to give more background information regarding how the people were made as well as how the suns were made as well as make up why the Coyote is worshipped by many Native American cultures. Then I wanted to tie it to real life somehow by telling how the sun is much bigger and much further now than it was before.  

Bibliography:
"Coyote and Old Mole" by Katharine Berry Judson from Myths and Legends of California and the Old Southwest (1912). Web Source: UN-Textbook.

Week 9: Reading Diary B

Week 9 Unit: California and the Old Southwest

READING B:

Origin of the Sierra Nevadas and Coast Range

• this story explains why the sierra nevada range is larger than the coast range
• Hawk and Crow took mud from a dead duck's mouth to create the mountain ranges
• Hawk thought Crow stole mud from him since Crow's mountain range was larger, so he put his where Crow's was

Legend of Tu-tok-a-nu'-la (El Capitan)

• tutokanula means measuring worm
• the story is about why the rock is called tutokanula
• two boys fell asleep on the rock that is continuously growing
• as a result, no one could go and wake them up to bring them home
• so various animals tried to jump up, but only the measuring worm was able to climb up and get them to wake up

The Children of Cloud

• this is the story of two twin boys who had the power of the cloud: thunder and lightning
• they did not know who their father was and so their mother sent them to go see him
• once they met their father, he was skeptical and had them go through various trials to make sure they were his children
• he finally accepted them, but after they lived to him for a while, they wanted to see their mother
• he sent them on their way and told them to not talk to anyone, but they got caught by a wolf and turned into agave plants

Origin of the Raven and the Macaw

• there was a priest with a beautiful staff who bestowed the people with 4 eggs: 2 blue and 2 red.
• he told them the blue would give them good fortune and happiness and the red would give them cold hard winters, so essentially, misfortune
• the stronger people took the blue egg from the weaker ones
• the blue egg ended up to be a raven 
• the red egg was a beautiful macaw

Coyote and Hare; Coyote and Fawns

• in the first story, a hare gets caught by a coyote and uses its wit to get away. 
• it does so by saying that all of the things that can kill it are its 'friends' whereas the weak stuff was harmful
• in the second story, the coyote wanted its children to be beautiful like the deer, so it put it in a cave of fire and accidentally burned them all to death
• the deer misled the coyote. so sad.

Coyote and the Quails

• some quails stole some meat from the coyote's body without him noticing
• he woke up and stole that meat from them and ate it
• they told him he was eating his own meat
• he finally noticed they had cut meat from him, so he went after them
• they disguised a cactus to look like them
• he bit the cactus and died

How the Bluebird Got its Color

• the bluebird used to be an ugly color, but it bathed in a river for 4 days and come out blue
• the coyote wanted the same, so he followed its instructions
• but he was so busy wanting to see if people noticed him that he ran into a stump and got covered with dirt
• as a result, all coyotes are the color of dirt

Coyote's Eyes

• I didn't really understand this story
• it seems there was a bird that could take out its eyes and throw them up and back into its sockets to make them "brighter" 
• the coyote wanted the same, so he copied it, making the bird do it for him
• the first time, it worked, but later one, he lost his eyes
• then the bird found some gum on a tree and used them to fill his sockets
• that's why his eyes are no longer black, but yellow

Coyote eyes.

Source: Larry 1732.

How the Rattlesnake Learned to Bite

• the rattlesnake was known as the soft child because all it could do was rattle its tail
• other animals would poke it and bother it in order to hear its tail
• so the rattlesnake was given teeth with poison made from hair
• the rabbit bothered it and got bitten and died
• the others tried to cremate the rabbit without letting the coyote know, but fail and the coyote ate its heart
• but the coyote also got burned from the fire in its mouth, which is why it is black

Week 9: Reading Diary A

Week 9 Unit: California and the Old Southwest

READING A:

Three Coyote Creation Stories

• In the first story, it looks like the coyote did much more than the eagle when the world was created. 
• Why were his methods more lethal or had a bigger impact on what became of the world? 
• The second story also put more emphasis on the coyote's helping hand in creating the world
• Something important is the 9 suns and 9 moons being destroyed
• maybe write a story on how the fragments from the destroyed sun and moons brothers came together to be one big sun and one big moon. 
• In the third story, everything was wiped out instead of the coyote and due to his benevolence, he grabbed feathers from various birds and recreated the world

The Creation of the World

• In this story, the Earth Doctor plays the role of the god that creates the earth 
• It almost seems like he plays around with various elements to create the earth
• like throwing the sun or land back and forth

Spider's Creation

• In this story, the spider was the one who created the world
• the name was Sussistinnako
• It sang and thus created the animals of the world
• it also separated people in to different clans according to animal names

The Great Fire; The Origin of Light

• For the first story, a man who was ridiculed by the two women he wanted to marry got angry and destroyed the world
• In the end, the world was saved by the coyote
• In the second story, it tells of why the moon isn't very bright
• it is because the moon is a ball of tule reeds made by the coyote and the hawk

Creation of Man

• It tells about how the cunning coyote created man
• all the other animals wanted to make man into a creature that resembled their own species
• however, while the other animal were sleeping, coyote destroyed all of their clay models and gave life to his own and beat the others to it, so he was able to use his own model

Old Man Above and the Grizzlies

• this story tells about why grizzly bears are the way that they are
• the Old Man Above had a daughter that got swept to the land of the grizzlies
• as a result, she married a grizzly and had children who became men 
• Old Man Above was furious and punished grizzlies by taking away their voice and then making them walk on all fours instead 2 legs

The Creation of Man-kind and the Flood

• this story also talks about the Earth Doctor as the creator
• he created animals, but because there were too many of them to handle, he had to kill them all in a flood
• then he went and recreated animals and continued to kill them in the flood if they got out of hand
• how did elder brother become the ruler of the world if earth doctor was the creator? why did earth doctor try to create something that would eventually become stronger than himself?

The Great Flood

• I wasn't too sure how the turkey bears the mark of the water
• this story talks about how the spider from the previous stories saved the people from the flood and how the constellations were made

The Fable of the Animals

• In this story, Kareya is the god figure
• coyote wanted to be the most powerful animal so he sent out to not sleep to meet kareya in order to gain more power, but his plan backfired
• as a result, he was the last to meet kareya and was to be the weakest but kareya felt sorry for him and gave him more cunning power than any other animal

The Course of the Sun

• this story explains why the sun goes from rises in the east and sets in the west
• the sun went various directions and didn't like them before he settled from east to west

The Theft of Fire

• the karok people were cold so coyote set out to steal fire in order to warm them for this story

Coyote, Tortillas, and Mesquite Beans

• I think the story warns about the dangers of eating mesquite beans because the coyote ate them and died. 
• In both stories, the coyote died..