Showing posts with label Week 10. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Week 10. Show all posts

Wednesday, October 22, 2014

Essay Week 10: Blackfoot Stories

This week I real the Blackfoot Stories by Grinnell. This story came from the Native American section of the UN-Textbook. This unit had a variety of stories within it. There were many single page stories but ended with a five page story. I thought this was a well put together unit. The variety kept the reading interesting and that made reading the unit easier. Some of the individual stories were short, about 300-600 words, compared to the average story which is about 1000 words. While I was reading the section I thought this was great. The shorter the reading the less time the reading takes. Now when I look back the stories, I am starting to wonder what was left out of the stories to make them so short. More details could be added to those stories to help expand the story. I did not think any of the stories were bad this week. There was not a single story that is my least favorite. I did however really like the Kut-O-Yis, The Blood Boy story. I think I have said this before but I like the stories that take up multiple pages in the unit. I think the extra length helps with the detail and excites me as a reader. When there are short story after short story, they seem to drag on and make reading the unit a lot harder. I also like the hero stories. Kut-O-Yis is just that. He is not your normal hero though. He just goes around and helps people who are suffering. I did not find anything missing in this unit. I did find a problem in one of the stories that I informed our teacher on and she has now fixed it.  Overall, I thought this was another great unit and I do not see any changes that should be made now. 

Blackfoot Indian Stories 
Web Source: UN-Textbook

Tuesday, October 21, 2014

Storytelling Week 10: Kut-O-Yis



There was once this village that was run by a man. He took over the village when he married his father-in-law’s daughters. The father-in-law knew that it was his time to give up his position. So he happily gave the position to his new son. The son took care of his new parents for a while. He eventually got tired of taking care of them and started mistreating them. He made his father-in-law help him hunt but would not give him any meat to eat. The father-in-law was able to sneak a blood clot of a buffalo one day and rushed home. By the time he got home a baby boy had formed from the clot. They named the boy Kut-O-Yis. Kut-O-Yis grew very quickly and was a man within a few days. He noticed that his parents did not have much food to eat. This upset him because he saw that the son-in-law had plenty of food. The next day Kut-O-Yis took his father to hunt. The son-in-law showed up and was angry with his father-in-law. They had a battle but neither could win so the father-in-law called to Kut-O-Yis for help. Kut-O-Yis did come to help and killed the son-in-law for the mistreatment of his parents. Kut-O-Yis also punished his sisters for not helping their parents. He did take it easy on the youngest though because she did give a little meat here and there. 

Kut-O-Yis knew that he had a great gift. He was strong and smart. He decided he wanted to go and help other people that were being mistreated. He was told of a village not far from his own. He traveled there and saw a beautiful lodge in the middle of the village. Instead of going to that lodge, he went to a smaller not so nice lodge. Some old women welcomed him and brought him food and water. The food they gave him was some of the worst meat you could have off of the buffalo. He asked the elderly ladies why they did not provide him with better food. They told him because the bear chief that lived in the beautiful lodge took the best meat from the entire village and left everyone with the worst. This infuriated Kut-O-Yis. He decided the next day to kill a big buffalo and hang it up outside the old ladies lodge. Later that day, the bear chief sent his daughter to collect the best meat. When she saw Kut-O-Yis buffalo she knew she had to take it. She walked over and started to take the buffalo down. Kut-O-Yis walked out and smacked her on the head. He told her she could not have the buffalo. She ran home crying to her father. The whole bear family came to destroy Kut-O-Yis for disrespecting the little girl bear. Kut-O-Yis was stronger than the bears and killed the entire family except the little girl bear. Instead, he let her go so she could populate the world with more bears. His smack on her head knocked the knowledge of knowing bears could be chief out of her head so that they could never be leaders of a village again. Kut-O-Yis continued his journey to defeat all things evil. By the end of his journey he defeated 7 evil beings. 

Blackfoot Tipis (Lodges) 
Web Source: UN-Textbook


Author’s Note: This story is from the Blackfoot Stories unit in the Native American section of the UN-Textbook. This particular story is based on Kut-O-Yis, The Blood Boy. I told this story to follow almost exactly how the story is told. I thought the story was so great that I didn’t need to change much. I did however add the part about how Kut-O-Yis’ smack knocked the knowledge out of the bear. In the original story he does hit her on the head and she does get away. He says in the story that he let her go to populate the world with bears. I thought that since bears are not village leaders that it would be a nice touch to say Kut-O-Yis made that happen. 

Bibliography: Blackfoot Stories by Grinnell. Web Source: UN-Textbook

Monday, October 20, 2014

Reading Diary Week 10: Blackfoot Stories

Two Fast Runners: A deer and an antelope meet each other on the prairie. They challenged each other to a race. The antelope won the race on the prairie and gained the deer’s gall. The deer was upset and challenged the antelope to a race in the timber. They raced again and the deer won. He received the antelope’s dewclaws. Now no deer have a gall and no antelope have dewclaws.

The Wolf Man: A man moved him and his two wives away from society to make them better wives. They were not happy about this and dug a deep hole to have their husband fall in. He does and the wives leave. A wolf finds the man and calls to his brothers to help him save the man. The man is then turned into part man part wolf. He helps the wolves gain meet from the village. One night they 
capture him and he tells them how this happened. The Wives are never seen after that night.

The Dog and The Root Digger: A man gathered all the game from the prairie. Napi and a young boy went and found all the game and returned them to the prairie. When they got back a raven tried to keep them from getting the buffalo. Napi captured the raven and punished him. He eventually took pity on the raven and told him to turn himself into his true form and return home.

The Camp of the Ghosts: a man’s wife dies. He was very upset and went to ghost country and retrieved her. This took a lot of help from some medicine women. He was able to bring his wife home. One night he was frustrated with the wife and raised a brand from the fire. This is one thing he could never do if he wished to keep his wife. She disappeared and was never seen again.

The Buffalo Stone: This is the story of how the first buffalo stone was found.


How the Thunder Pipe Came: A man and his wife were struck by thunder. Thunder took his wife. The man went to find his wife. With from help from the Raven chief, he was able to get his wife back from the thunder. He was also given the thunder pipe by the thunder.

Cold Maker’s Medicine: An old woman was killing people to eat them. This made the cold make mad. He took broken bow and together they killed the old women.

The Rolling Rock: An old man gives a rock a robe for allowing him to sit on it. Later, it starts raining so he send a coyote to retrieve the robe from the rock. The rock would not allow it and the old man went and took it from the rock. The rock was mad and started rolling after them. It killed many animals that tried to help the old man. A flock of night-hawks broke the rock and saved his life. In return he make them pretty and queer-looking. 

Bear and Bullberries: an old man made fun of a bear and hid many times. Finally, the bear chases him until they got to a big rock. They went round and round the rock. Until the old man found a buffalo horn and made a horrible sound that scared the bear away. He then went to the river and saw bullberries. He dove down but could not get them. He decided to tie a rock to himself and almost drowned. He realized he was just seeing the reflection in the water and beat the bullberry bush.

The Theft from the Sun: An old man tried to still the suns legging but could never get away. The sun eventually gave the old man the leggings. The day the old man used the legging the fire that they caused kept after him and burned the leggings up. 

The Smart Woman Chief: An old man found the first women because men and women used to live separately. He arrange for men to gain wives. He wanted to marry the Woman Chief so he described how he would dress and the leader. The woman chief chose him but he turned her down because he did not recognize her because she was dirty. He was not picked because of this and was angry. He started destroying stuff and the woman chief turned him into a pine tree.  

Bobcat and Birch Tree: An old man tricked prairie dogs into roasting themselves. He ate some and then went to sleep. A bobcat came and ate the rest of his food. He found the bobcat and made it look like it does today. He then told the wind to blow to cool his burned nose. The wind blew too hard and he was being blown away. He grabbed a birch tree and it held him tight. He then made the birch tree look like it does today.   

The Red-Eyed Duck: An old man that was traveling was asked to sing songs for the ducks. They bothered him enough that he agreed. He sang them a song that if they opened their eyes they would turn red. As the ducks danced the old man started killing them. A young duck opened his eyes and saw what the old man was doing. He warned the other ducks and they flew away. The young duck’s eyes were turned red. 

Kut-O-Yis, The Blood Boy: An old man and women were being starved by their son in law. The old man went out every day and helped him hunt but never received any food. One day the old man managed to grab a clot and take it home with him. It turned out to be a baby boy. They named him Kut-O-Yis. 

Kut-O-Yis, The Blood Boy (cont.): Kut grew to a man very quickly. He took his father to kill a buffalo and then killed the son in law. He also punished the daughters but not the youngest as badly. She had been kind to her parents. 

Kut-O-Yis, The Blood Boy (cont. again): Kut left his family to go to another camp. He helped that camp with their mean chief that would take the best meat from them. Kut killed the bear chief and all but a little she bear. He then told the old ladies to move into the bears lodge. 

Kut-O-Yis, The Blood Boy (cont. yet again): Kut saved another village from a snake chief that was being stingy. He then went to the wind sucker and killed it but cutting its heart.  

Kut-O-Yis, The Blood Boy (end): Kut kept destroying bad things. One was a woman that wanted to wrestle. Another a woman that tripped people and they fell into the water and were eaten and lastly a man eater. He gave them all 4 chances not to mess with him and after that he killed them. He had killed 7 bad things.