How Did Native People Tell Stories With Animals

By Angeline P. Hoffman, White Mountain Apache

One of the themes from my studies, animals, derives from Native American children's books featuring animals and the encountered stories about upstanding or moral behaviors contained within them. Many Indigenous American cultures laurels and revere animals. The people know that animals came into existence before man and animals have long been prevalent on Mother Earth. When men came, Animals communicated with humans and they nonetheless do. Therefore, they are respected; animals are considered Spirit helpers. Each animal has qualities that are special and powerful and shared with homo beings if the creature is respected.

Gregory Cajete* notes that approximately 75% of Native American narratives comprise pregnant animals, evidencing the close relationship of Native People and animals. In add-on, he asserts that relationships with animals have always been an of import part of Native American spirituality. We are related and humans have a responsibility to animals. With Native people, animals have always been considered equal to humans and property the aforementioned rights in terms of the perpetuation of species. For example, humans rightfully and respectfully enquire permission of animals for doing things with them and to them. The connexion between humans and animals is demonstrated in numerous means in Native tradition and in Native stories.

Many Native people view their human relationship to all living creatures equally an important aspect of spirituality and view their reciprocal relationships with animals as sacred. Traditional Native American children'due south books featuring animals ofttimes include animal characters as chief characters with autonomy and discretion. These narratives are education tools for the listener and are related in a fashion that allows the listener to apply their embedded lessons to individual situations.

The following are Native American children's books featuring animals as primary characters.

Author: Michael Lacapa
Title: Antelope Woman: An Apache Folktale
Full of beautiful, authentic drawing from an Apache, Tewa, and Hopi, Antelope Woman explores why the Apache "honor the antelope by never hunting or killing them. For out in that location among the antelope are Antelope Woman and her children and they are part of us. Now as nosotros hunt, my son, we must be thankful to the creator, who gives the states all things great and minor and who teaches u.s. to honour them all."

Author: Ferguson Plainly (Ojibwe)
Title: Amikoonse (Piddling Beaver)
Amikoonse, the niggling beaver, had always lived with the boy, his friend and had never known any other mode of life. One day, while Gramps is telling stories, an open front door presents an opportunity that he could not resist, and Amikoonse runs. Soon, Amikoonse finds himself lost in a earth far dissimilar than the one he had known. With the assistance of Ol' Owl, he comes to his ain place of belonging.

Author: Joe Medicine Crow (Crow)
Title: Brave Wolf and the Thunderbird
Illustration: Linda R. Martin (Dine')
Each leap, a water monster comes out of the lake to steal Thunderbird's chicks. Determined not to let this continue, Thunderbird snatches upward a homo hunter, Brave Wolf, to assist her foil the monster. With Brave Wolf'southward creative thinking and Thunderbird'south contribution of some dry logs, a big pile of rocks, a freshly killed buffalo, and a pelting shower, the monster is greeted by more than a few helpless chicks. Martin'due south illustrations—especially of the monster getting its comeuppance—are perfect

Author: Donna Joe (Sechelt)
Title:Ch'askin: A Legend of the Sechelt People
Illustration: Black and white illustrations by Jamie Jeffies (Sechelt)
Like Brave Wolf and the Thunderbird, this book is evocative. Ch'askin, Thunderbird, has come up to aid the Sechelt people survive. Merely when the people no longer look to him for help, he knows his work is done.

Author: John Blondin (Dene), as told by father, George Blondin (Dene), Translated into Dogrib past Mary Rose Sundberg (Dene)
Championship: Ekwo'Dozhia Wegondi: The Legend of the Caribou Boy
Tribe/Ethnic Group: Dogrib/Tlicho
When a footling male child has trouble sleeping at night, he realizes that the caribou spirit is then strong in him that he tin can no longer remain a homo. But his connexion to his human family is potent likewise, so he gives them the gift of the caribou when they are hungry.

Writer: Joseph McLellan (Me'tis)
Title: Nanabosho: How the Turtle Got Its Shell
Illustration: Rhian Brynjolson
Tribe/Ethnic Gropus: Me'tis, Ojibwe
When Nonie, Billy and their grandparents get to the urban center to visit Aunt Matrine, they stop at a pet store in the mall and are saddened past the sight of turtles for sale. "Turtles vest in lakes and rivers," says Mishomis, "not in stores. Kitchie Manitou did non create turtles to exist endemic." In the story that follows, Nanabosho is a gift-giver, and as thanks for helping him discover fish to eat, he gives Turtle the gift of a vanquish.

Author: Donna Joe (Sechelt)
Title: Salmon Male child: A Legend of the Sechelt People
Illustration: Charlie Craigan
This traditional story tells of how the relationship between the people and the salmon came to exist. Considering the people treat the salmon with respect, the salmon are "happy to come ashore each twelvemonth and give their rich flesh to feed the people of the land."

Author: Dovie Thomason (Lakota/Kiowa-Apache)
Title: The Animals' Wishes
Illustration: Dee Willey
Tribe/Ethnic Groups: Haudenosaunee
A traditional Haudenosaunee story for first readers in which Maker allows the animals-to-be to take a say in their ain features—just just if their wishes are good ones.

Author: Chad Solomon (Ojibwe) and Christopher Meyer
Championship: Adventures of Rabbit and Bear Paws: Vol. one; "The Sugar Bush"
Illustration: Chad Solomon
The protagonists in these Ojibwe-axial graphic novels are Ojibwe brothers dealing, in their inimitable means, with their land-hungry new neighbors. Rabbit is a shrewd, cunning, headstrong kid who often confuses bravery with bravado. His younger brother, Bear Paws, is larger and stronger, gullible, and always ready to pull Rabbit out of a scheme-gone-awry. The 2 transform themselves into animals, try to go out of trouble and chores, and remember the onetime stories and that lead to traditional lessons they impart. In "The Carbohydrate Bush-league," Rabbit and Behave Paws encounter a troop of British soldiers who don't speak Ojibwe and have no idea how to live on the land.

Author: Joseph McLellan (Me'tis) and Matrine McLellan (Ojibwe/Cree)
Title: Goose Daughter
Analogy: Rhian Brynjolson
Tribes/Indigenous Groups: Me'tis, Ojibwe, and Cree
10-year-former Marie has a special bail with the geese, given to her for a purpose. Because of this bond, Marie becomes Niskaw and is charged with the responsibleness of bringing the healings of the geese to her people. It becomes her life'due south piece of work to visit the ill and comfort the dying, and to call on the geese to take people's spirits home.

Writer: Allen Sockabasin (Passamaquoddy)
Championship: Thanks to the Animals
Illustration:Rebekah Raye
Tribes/Ethnic Groups: Passamaquoddy
A bedtime story for emerging readers, Cheers to the Animals is a story of how all the animals of the woods come together to shield and protect a child lost on his mode to his family'due south winter home until his male parent can return to have him home safely.

Writer: Lyz Jaakola (Ojibwe
Title: Our Journey
Analogy:Karen Savage Blue
Tribe/Ethnic Groups: Ojibwe
The beautifully rich, colorful paintings teach readers Ojibwemowin phrases of greetings and cheers.

Author: Delores Taken Alive (Lakota Language Consortium)
Title: Prairie Dog Goes to School
Illustration: Frantisek Valer
Tribe/Ethnic Groups: Lakota
Modeled to follow the classic Lakota tale "Turtle Goes on the Warpath," this book follows a prairie canis familiaris as he goes to school. Forth the way, he encounters many unlike animals, and finally the instructor at school, a acquit, who counts and names all the students.

* Cajete, Thou. (2000). Native Science: Natural Laws of Interdependence. Santa Fe, NM: Clear Light.

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• Themes: Angeline Hoffman, Indigenous
• Descriptors: Books & Resource, WOW Currents

Source: https://wowlit.org/blog/2016/08/17/native-american-childrens-books-featuring-animals/

Posted by: tedescobutibill79.blogspot.com

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