Native American Stories

The post is by Tyson Wine

I'm finding it increasingly interesting to learn about Native American stories. I find it especially fascinating to learn their ideas about various animals. Animals are often treated as if they have attributes similar to humans - for better or worse. We see this in stories such as Turtle Island and the story of the Fat Beaver told by Delbert Miller. Anyway, my interest in these personifications shows that the culture/nature dichotomy is not present in native cultures in the US. American Indians are part of nature, in touch with nature, and willing to learn from nature.

The stories I'm going to share are from a new book I've been reading called "Native American Stories of the Sacred" retold and annotated by Evan T. Pritchard. The stories I specifically tell are "How Deer Got His Horns" and "Why Deer's Teeth are Blunt" partially because they are really two parts of one story (showing that everything should be in balance, it appears) and greatly because I am trying to learn as much about Cherokee history as possible, as I am a descendant of a Cherokee. I will likely refer to other parts of the book indirectly, so if you are interested, I highly encourage you to read it!

"How Deer Got His Horns"

Before deer had his horns, it was wondered wether deer or rabbit were faster, since both were fast but in different ways. Deer could run fast, but rabbit was a great jumper and moved pretty rapidly through the woods. What's more, rabbit was clever. To find out who was faster, a race was divised with a grand prize of a nice pair of antlers. The day of the race, Rabbit asked to take a look around the thatchet where the race was to take place - claiming not to know this neck of the woods. As the other animals waited, it occured that the tricky rabbit might be up to something, and so a messenger was sent to figure out where rabbit was. He did so, and discovered rabbit attempting to dig a short-cut through the thicket. It was in this way that deer won the race - not through speed but by innocence - and to this day Deer wheres his antlers that he won. Rabbit did not lose the race for lack of speed but for trickery and disqualification.

Analysis:

I forgot to mention that this story actually contains analysis of these stories, but not in the context of environmental anthropology. Nevertheless, it's a pretty great book.

First of all, the book says that the Cherokee say, "To serve others, to be of some use to family, community, Nation, and the world, is one of the main purposes for which human beings have been created ... True happiness comes only to those who dedicate their lives to the service of others." The point is that servitude and kindness and an objective position are the purpose of life, not personal gain. While I don't want to turn this particular blog into a political one, the implications of capitalism as destructive self-interest are evidenced by this story. This story takes the personalities of animals and applies them to ethics. In this way, the Cherokee were able to show that ethics were more important than personal gain and pride. More importantly, this story shows that the rewards ultimately go to those who are fair and honest.

This is a different approach to TEK than we've seen. Instead of merely showing that the Cherokee understand TEK, we see that the Cherokee used their understanding of nature to express ethics. This is important because there was no legal punishment for criminal behavior in American Indian communities. What you had was a populous of people who say through stories what was right and wrong. These stories were the connection between TEK and ethics. Another point, by the author, is that excellence attracts jealousy. "Jealousy is best dealt with by cautious, gradual power-sharing in the Native tradition, not with naivete or hostility.

Alright, so I admit that I included this particular photo because these bunnies are obviously up to no good ...

This story flows into the next, showing that no story should be considered separate from any other. What's more, no story should be considered merely for its portrayal of the winner. (There are losers, and when they are as cute as the up-to-something bunnies above, we definitely want to consider them to ...)

Why Deer's Teeth Are Blunt

I'll make this story short because I'm getting kind of long-winded here. The rabbit, being entirely jealous and a little hurt, tricked deer into believing that he could cut through some tough vine and that deer could not because his teeth were too blunt. Rabbit then convinced deer that he needed his teeth to be sharpened, and promptly filed down deers teeth so that he too could cut through the vine. Unfortunately, he didn't sharpen but filed dull, and deer was left able to eat nothing other than grass and leaves. Rabbit claims "now you've paid for your horns," implying that some loss has to come with deer's gain of his horns.

The obvious side of deer that we see here is the naivety that simplicity can lead to.
What's more, there is a balance in the universe that is very well portrayed here. More importantly, the moral seems to be that you shall never trust the clever as their cleverness is often used for the wrong pursuits, such as greed or jealousy. Nevertheless, deer's naivety shows us that if we are not careful we can pay for our achievements. The Cherokee believe this to be a great truth - that excellence attracts jealousy - and thus encourage "gradual power-sharing" which sounds to me like a truer version of democracy than our own. I certainly did not feel as if the last eight years were ones comprised of "power-sharing" but none-the-less, the Cherokee form of governing and even encouragement of perseverence of that power-sharing is impresive.

To quote Pritchard; "As I have been told, "The Mi'kmaq didn't have jails or mental institutions, they had ahdooga'an" (teaching tales). When people are raised right on strong stories, they grow up strong, ready to deal with small problems before they get big. That way, tyranny never gets a foothold."

Last, I would like to ask a question (for reply or just thought): Did the Cherokee learn from the mistakes of the animals, or did they merely create "stories" out of their interpretations of personalities represented by animals? It appears that the Cherokee understood animals to have personalities just like humans, with the necessity of learning from their mistakes.