UAF Lesson, Stories

Myths and folktales

In Inuit (Eskimo) folklore, Raven—known as Tulugaq in Inuktitut—is the most central and paradoxical figure. He plays the dual role of a benevolent creator god who shaped the world and a conniving, greedy trickster driven by hunger and self-gratification. Traditional stories often depict him as a shapeshifter who can easily transform between a bird and a human simply by pulling his beak up over his head like a mask.

 

The Creation of the World & Man

In the beginning, the world was completely dark, silent, and covered in water. Raven created the dry earth and mountains by forcefully beating his great black wings.

 

 

Narrative poems

 

The Cremation of Sam McGee

By Robert W. Service
There are strange things done in the midnight sun
      By the men who moil for gold;
The Arctic trails have their secret tales
      That would make your blood run cold;
The Northern Lights have seen queer sights,
      But the queerest they ever did see
Was that night on the marge of Lake Lebarge
      I cremated Sam McGee.
Now Sam McGee was from Tennessee, where the cotton blooms and blows.
Why he left his home in the South to roam ’round the Pole, God only knows.
He was always cold, but the land of gold seemed to hold him like a spell;
Though he’d often say in his homely way that “he’d sooner live in hell.”
On a Christmas Day we were mushing our way over the Dawson trail.
Talk of your cold! through the parka’s fold it stabbed like a driven nail.
If our eyes we’d close, then the lashes froze till sometimes we couldn’t see;
It wasn’t much fun, but the only one to whimper was Sam McGee.
And that very night, as we lay packed tight in our robes beneath the snow,
And the dogs were fed, and the stars o’erhead were dancing heel and toe,
He turned to me, and “Cap,” says he, “I’ll cash in this trip, I guess;
And if I do, I’m asking that you won’t refuse my last request.”
Well, he seemed so low that I couldn’t say no; then he says with a sort of moan:
“It’s the cursèd cold, and it’s got right hold till I’m chilled clean through to the bone.
Yet ’tain’t being dead—it’s my awful dread of the icy grave that pains;
So I want you to swear that, foul or fair, you’ll cremate my last remains.”
A pal’s last need is a thing to heed, so I swore I would not fail;
And we started on at the streak of dawn; but God! he looked ghastly pale.
He crouched on the sleigh, and he raved all day of his home in Tennessee;
And before nightfall a corpse was all that was left of Sam McGee.
There wasn’t a breath in that land of death, and I hurried, horror-driven,
With a corpse half hid that I couldn’t get rid, because of a promise given;
It was lashed to the sleigh, and it seemed to say: “You may tax your brawn and brains,
But you promised true, and it’s up to you to cremate those last remains.”
Now a promise made is a debt unpaid, and the trail has its own stern code.
In the days to come, though my lips were dumb, in my heart how I cursed that load.
In the long, long night, by the lone firelight, while the huskies, round in a ring,
Howled out their woes to the homeless snows— O God! how I loathed the thing.
And every day that quiet clay seemed to heavy and heavier grow;
And on I went, though the dogs were spent and the grub was getting low;
The trail was bad, and I felt half mad, but I swore I would not give in;
And I’d often sing to the hateful thing, and it hearkened with a grin.
Till I came to the marge of Lake Lebarge, and a derelict there lay;
It was jammed in the ice, but I saw in a trice it was called the “Alice May.”
And I looked at it, and I thought a bit, and I looked at my frozen chum;
Then “Here,” said I, with a sudden cry, “is my cre-ma-tor-eum.”
Some planks I tore from the cabin floor, and I lit the boiler fire;
Some coal I found that was lying around, and I heaped the fuel higher;
The flames just soared, and the furnace roared—such a blaze you seldom see;
And I burrowed a hole in the glowing coal, and I stuffed in Sam McGee.
Then I made a hike, for I didn’t like to hear him sizzle so;
And the heavens scowled, and the huskies howled, and the wind began to blow.
It was icy cold, but the hot sweat rolled down my cheeks, and I don’t know why;
And the greasy smoke in an inky cloak went streaking down the sky.
I do not know how long in the snow I wrestled with grisly fear;
But the stars came out and they danced about ere again I ventured near;
I was sick with dread, but I bravely said: “I’ll just take a peep inside.
I guess he’s cooked, and it’s time I looked”; … then the door I opened wide.
And there sat Sam, looking cool and calm, in the heart of the furnace roar;
And he wore a smile you could see a mile, and he said: “Please close that door.
It’s fine in here, but I greatly fear you’ll let in the cold and storm—
Since I left Plumtree, down in Tennessee, it’s the first time I’ve been warm.”
There are strange things done in the midnight sun
      By the men who moil for gold;
The Arctic trails have their secret tales
      That would make your blood run cold;
The Northern Lights have seen queer sights,
      But the queerest they ever did see
Was that night on the marge of Lake Lebarge
      I cremated Sam McGee.

 

Certain songs, movies, plays and other forms.

Prehistoric times: cave walls.

Children tell stories as soon as they have enough words to put together a sentence. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rncb_-isT4U

 

Ever made up a story for a child?

Spells and enchantments in fairy tales and Harry Potter novels

Hunger for humor and jokes.    Condemned man

 

All intelligent persons try to make sense of their lives with stories.

A beautiful story well told assures us that at least some of life is beautiful.

We love stories of heroes – even if we know the tales are exaggerated.

Stories create community.

Comedy Clubs.

Book clubs:  How might 2 or more people react when they find they love the same novel?  Or like science fiction? Or mysteries. Or thrillers?

Or movies?  Rocky Horror Picture Show

 

Stories can make you feel you are not the only person in the universe who ever felt lonely, or lost, or confused?

Such stories off er us relief.

Characters in stories reveal innermost longings and secrets.

The Jews rehearse the events of Passover.

Christians tell of a miraculous birth and death and a resurrection.

The Hopi recount the story of their emergence from the earth.

The Hopi people believe they emerged into this current world from deep inside the previous underworlds. They made this journey with the help of Spider Woman and the mockingbird through a special opening called the sipapu. This sacred place sits in the Grand Canyon.

 

We are fascinated by magic journeys.

 

We come back from a road trip and tell our friends or post photos on social media.

Enslaved individuals documented their captures through historical slave narratives and oral histories, detailing sudden ambushes, kidnappings from homes or paths, and being torn from families by raiders or traders.

 

Stories make sure the evil get punished—if only by their foul reputations.

 

 

https://www.google.com/search?sa=X&sca_esv=d6e7ab04ea685907&rlz=1C5CHFA_enUS907US907&sxsrf=APpeQnvA5MAmIXPVOB7319xh_393oQLxIA:1787530388671&udm=7&fbs=ABfTbFUxGEP8yeZbmk97ajdTjIq-Fell6yjIojusYtuKjXhLi43HlmHdBhkjA3l1LeWMNI31J3wjh5ota8viteVD7M7JCwF6q1OAil_s5-HoUU-Q__Wo5NeY9MCU1YghbnDOU9nzXd4zN6xf0_8qFUlDWo4tRSFj4BvNAirvWmRxP7N9FvN-rJNr5TmGdH-yvhxhz3TfaoEYGjZp8UJh0Yj57VljtfqCraSu04bypC74KeDj5WaLrhw&q=slaves+told+of+their+capture&ved=2ahUKEwiX1d3O_beWAxXzDTQIHUwBHE4QtKgLegQIEBAB&biw=1711&bih=1083&dpr=2#fpstate=ive&ip=1&vld=cid:5ccc29b7,vid:Rhl9TCsbnZ0,st:0

 

 

The Evil Doers have their stories, of course.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q8i4PC1_-W0&t=59s

 

 

 

Seeing how the media sometimes covered the Klan is instructive.

 

Thoreau:  The miracle of looking through someone else’s eyes for an instant.  And then his biography and story gets told through modern technology.

https://www.pbs.org/video/making-henry-david-thoreau-5zrypo/