Reading Notes: Native American Hero Tales (Part B)

Native American Hero Tales

Bibliography: Native American Hero Tales by Stith Thompson myth-folklore-unit-native-american_10.html

There was a couple and the women was pregnant. While the husband was out hunting the Red-women came and cut open her stomach. She found two twin boys. She threw one behind the curtain and the other in a spring. She stood the women up with a stick and burned her lip to make it look like she was laughing. Her husband came home, tired from hunting and asked why his wife was laughing at him. He then pushed her over and realized she was dead and he knew the red women had done it. 

The man heard a voice ask for food and the boy came out of the curtain. The boy asked his dad to make him arrows and later that day he shot them at the boy who was living in the spring. The father said that the boy should tell the spring boy to come and live with them. So they planned to play arrows one day. They caught the boy and brought him back to their house and they all lived together. 

One day they went to visit their mothers grave and said they were going to wake her. They told her certain things and her moved and sat up and following their commands. The mother woke up and said that she had been sleeping for a long time. Then she came home with the boys. 

The father forbid the boys from going to the river bend because there was a women who lived there and she would boil people to eat them. The boys went one day while she was sleeping and tilted the pot towards so she was boiled. They gave the pot to their mother. 

The father told them not to disobey him again and told them that there was something over the hill  that they could not go to. They boys went and found an alligator like serpent who killed things. They took out is heart and took it home to their father. 

I included this picture to represent the place that they lived at. 

River bend