High school Lit

Please review the attached document in order to complete the assigned. 1 paragraph needed for this assignment. Budget $3.

What does this myth reveal about the culture of the Native American tribe that created it?

In order to effectively answer this question you need to:

• Include textual evidence, including at least two direct quotations, for the ideas that you are presenting (see below for more explanation). Be sure to explain how the quotes support your ideas.
• Have a concluding sentence at the end of the paragraph that summarizes your main points again (but should not be exactly the same as the topic sentence).

“The Earth on Turtle’s Back”

From the Onondaga-Northeast Woodlands tribe, Retold by Michael J. Caduto & Joseph Bruchac

 

Before Earth was here there was only water as far as one could see in all directions, with birds and animals swimming around in it. Up above in the clouds there was Skyland. In Skyland was a great and beautiful tree with four white roots stretching to the four sacred directions. Every kind of fruit and flower grew from its wide spreading branches.

The Chief of Skyland’s young wife was expecting a child. One night she dreamt she saw the great tree uprooted. The next morning she told her husband her dream. “This is very sad,” he said, “for it is a dream of great power and we must do all we can to make it come true.” Then the chief called all the men together and told them they must uproot the tree. But the roots were so deep and strong they couldn’t budge it. So the ancient chief himself wrapped his arms around the tree and strained and strained, until with one last great effort he uprooted it. Now there was a great hole where the tree’s roots had been. The chief’s wife came and leaned over to look down, holding the tip of one of the uprooted tree’s branches to steady herself. Far below she thought she saw something glittering like water. Leaning out further, she lost her balance and fell into the hole. Her hand slipped from the tip of the branch, leaving her only a handful of seeds as she fell.

Far, far below in the waters some of the animals looked up. “Someone is falling from the sky,” said one.

“We must help her,” said another. Then two Swans flew up and caught her between their wings, and brought her gently down to the water where the birds and animals were watching.

She is not like us,” said one of the animals. “She doesn’t have webbed feet. I don’t think she can live in the water.”

“What shall we do?” said another of the water animals.

“I know,” said one of the birds. “I have heard there is Earth far below the waters. If we dive down and bring up Earth she will have a place to stand. So the birds and animals tried to bring up Earth. First Duck dove far down beneath the surface, but he couldn’t reach the bottom and floated back up. Then Beaver tried. He went even deeper, so deep that it was all dark, but he couldn’t reach the bottom either. Then Loon tried and was gone a long, long time, but he too failed to bring up Earth. Soon it seemed that all had tried and failed. Then a small voice spoke.

“I will bring up Earth or die trying.” They all looked to see who it was. It was little Muskrat. She dove down and swam and swam. She was not as strong and swift as the others, but she was determined. She went so deep that it was all dark, and still she swam deeper. Her lungs felt ready to burst, but she swam deeper still. At last, just as she was becoming unconscious, she grasped at the bottom with her little paw and floated upwards, almost dead. When the other animals saw her break the surface, they thought she had failed. Then they saw her right paw was held tightly shut.

“She has the Earth,” they said. “Now where can we put it?”

“Place it on my back,” said a deep voice. It was Great Turtle who had come up from the depths. They brought Muskrat over and placed her paw against his back. To this day there are marks at the back of Turtle’s shell that were made by Muskrat’s paw. The tiny bit of Earth fell on the back of Turtle. Almost immediately it began to grow and grow until it became the whole world.

Then the two Swans brought Sky Woman down. She stepped onto the new Earth and opened her hand, letting the seeds fall onto the bare soil. From the seeds the trees and grass and flowers sprang up. Life on Earth had begun.

 

“When Grizzlies Walked Upright”

from the Modoc tribe, Retold by Richard Erdoes and Alfonso Ortiz

 

　　Before there were people on earth, the Chief of the Sky Spirits grew tired of his home in the Above World, because the air was always brittle with an icy cold. So he carved a hole in the sky with a stone and pushed all the snow and ice down below until he made a great mound that reached from the earth almost to the sky. Today it is known as Mount Shasta.

　　Then the Sky Spirit took his walking stick, stepped from a cloud to the peak, and walked down to the mountain. When he was about halfway to the valley below, he began to put his finger to the ground here and there, here and there. Wherever his finger touched, a tree grew. The snow melted in his footsteps, and the water ran down in rivers.

 

Value: 20

Top of Form

The fact that the Sky Spirit waited until he was “about halfway to the valley below” before he began creating trees explains which natural wonder:

 a. the horizon
 b. the tree line
 c. snow-capped mountains
 d. where the snow melts and runs into rivers

Bottom of Form

　　The Sky Spirit broke off the small end of his giant stick and threw the pieces into the rivers. The longer pieces turned into beaver and otter; the smaller pieces became fish. When the leaves dropped from the trees, he picked them up, blew upon them, and so made the birds. Then he took the big end of his giant stick and made all the animals that walked on the earth, the biggest of which were the grizzly bears.

Mt. Shasta

　　Now when they were first made, the bears were covered with hair and had sharp claws, just as they do today, but they walked on two feet and could talk like people. They looked so fierce that the Sky Spirit sent them away from him to live in the forest at the base of the mountain.

　　Pleased with what he’d done, the Chief of the Sky Spirits decided to bring his family down and live on earth himself. The mountains of snow and ice became their lodge. He made a big fire in the center of the mountain and a hole in the top so that the smoke and sparks could fly out. When he put a big log on the fire, sparks would fly up and the earth would tremble.

　　Late one spring while the Sky Spirit and his family were sitting round the fire, the Wind Spirit sent a great storm that shook the top of the mountain. It blew and blew and roared and roared. Smoke blown back into the lodge hurt their eyes, and finally the Sky Spirit said to his youngest daughter, “Climb up to the smoke hole and ask the Wind Spirit to blow more gently. Tell him I’m afraid he will blow the mountain over.”

　　As his daughter started up, her father said, “But be careful not to stick your head out at the top. If you do, the wind may catch you by the hair and blow you away.”

　　The girl hurried to the top of the mountain and stayed well inside the smoke hole as she spoke to the Wind Spirit. As she was about to climb back down, she remembered that her father had once said you could see the ocean from the top of their lodge. His daughter wondered what the ocean looked like, and her curiosity got the better of her. She poked her head out of the hole and turned toward the west, but before she could see anything, the Wind Spirit caught her long hair, pulled her out of the mountain, and blew her down over the snow and ice. She landed among the scrubby fir trees at the edge of the timber and snow line, her long red hair trailing over the snow.

 
Value: 20
Top of Form

Considering all of the details the story has given about the Sky Spirit’s home inside the mountain and also the physical description of how his daughter was blown out of the mountain, what natural phenomenon is this myth trying to explain?

 a. snow storms
 b. earthquakes
 c. volcanic eruptions
 d. mountain ranges

  

Bottom of Form

　　There a grizzly bear found the little girl when he was out hunting food for his family. He carried her home with him, and his wife brought her up with their family of cubs. The little red-haired girl and the cubs ate together, played together, and grew up together.

　　When she became a young woman, she and the eldest son of the grizzly bears were married. In the years that followed they had many children, who were not as hairy as the grizzlies, yet did not look exactly like their spirit mother, either.

　　All the grizzly bears throughout the forests were so proud of these new creatures that they made a lodge for the red-haired mother and her children. They placed the lodge near Mount Shasta—it is called Little Mount Shasta today.

　　After many years had passed, the mother grizzly bear knew that she would soon die. Fearing that she should ask of the Chief of the Sky Spirits to forgive her for keeping his daughter, she gathered all the grizzlies at the lodge they had built. Then she sent her eldest grandson in a cloud to the top of Mount Shasta, to tell the Spirit Chief where he could find his long-lost daughter.

　　When the father got this news he was so glad that he came down the mountainside in giant strides, melting the snow and tearing up the land under his feet. Even today his tracks can be seen in the rocky path on the south side of Mount Shasta.

　　As he neared the lodge, he called out, “Is this where my little daughter lives?”

　　He expected his child to look exactly as she had when he saw her last. When he found a grown woman instead, and learned that the strange creatures she was taking care of were his grandchildren, he became very angry. A new race had been created that was not of his making! He frowned on the old grandmother so sternly that she promptly fell dead. Then he cursed all the grizzlies:

“Get down on your hands and knees. You have wronged me, and from this moment all of you will walk on four feet and never talk again.”

　　He drove his grandchildren out of the lodge, put his daughter over his shoulder, and climbed back up the mountain. Never again did he come to the forest. Some say that he put out the fire in the center of his lodge and took his daughter back up to the sky to live.

　　Those strange creatures, his grandchildren, scattered and wandered over the earth. They were the first Indians, the ancestors of all the Indian tribes.

 
Value: 20
Top of Form

The fact that the Native Americans created a myth explaining their own origin as being half-god, half-grizzly bear shows their complete respect for and admiration of animals.

 True
 False

  
Bottom of Form

　　That’s why the Indians living around Mount Shasta would never kill a grizzly bear. Whenever a grizzly killed an Indian, his body was burned on the spot. And for many years all who passed that way cast a stone there until a great pile of stones marked the place of his death.

 
 

Remember to complete the chart above with examples from each of these two stories. Click to the next page for your writing assignment associated with these stories.

 
 

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Attribution: Mt. Shasta Creative Commons

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