Week 9 Essay: Native American Heroes

Since the title of the unit I read this week was Native American Hero Tales, it’s only fitting to do my essay about heroes! These tales were not about the typical definition of a hero though. Out of the eight stories in this unit, only “The Attack on the Giant Elk and the Great Eagle” was about someone who accomplished something heroic. The character in that tale was Jonayaiyin and he was given the task of killing two giant creatures that had been destroying humans. He goes off on his hunting adventure and comes back victorious, much like you would expect your everyday hero tale to go.

The other tales, however, were more focused on characters that either accomplish something or evade someone or something who is bothering them. The “hero” in “The Jealous Uncle” and “The Jealous Father” is actually just a boy who escapes someone trying to harm him. “The Son-in-Law Tests” and “The Dirty Boy” seemed to be tales that were more about tricksters than heroes. In each story, a character, or set of characters, uses magic to accomplish what they are seeking, but neither of the accomplishments were what I would normally consider heroic.

“Lodge-Boy and Thrown-Away” and “Dug-From-Ground” were both about characters that were transformed. In one case, the characters were transformed from animals to humans and in the other case, the main character was transformed from a root to a human. In each story these characters continue on to live happy lives, but never actually accomplish something heroic.

With all of this being said, perhaps the Native Americans had a different definition of “hero” than what we would normally think of, or what is found in tales such as the Greek myths. In these tales, a hero was simply someone who lived a successful live, which could be defined as getting married or just simply living with their families.

Lots of this week's characters lived in tipis. 

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Image Info: Web Source: Wikipedia.