Showing posts with label Mooney. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Mooney. Show all posts

Friday, August 8, 2014

Cherokee Fables: The Moon and The Thunders

The Sun was a young woman and lived in the East, while her brother, the Moon. lived in the West. The girl had a lover who used to come every month in the dark of the moon to court her. He would come at night, and leave before daylight, and although she talked with him she could not see his face in the dark, and he would not tell her his name, until she was wondering all the time who it could be. At last she hit upon a plan to find out, so the next time he came, as they were sitting together in the dark of the âsi, she slyly dipped her hand into the cinders and ashes of the fireplace and rubbed it over his face, saying, “Your face is cold; you must have suffered from the wind,” and pretending to be very sorry for him, but he did not know that she had ashes on her hand. After a while he left her and went away again.


Thursday, May 8, 2014

Native American Fables: The Origin of Strawberries

Strawberry_flower
When James Mooney, who worked for the Bureau of American Ethnology in the late 1800’s, lived with the Cherokee, he recorded many of their myths and legends. I love the story of the origin of strawberries because it presents the Cherokee version of Adam and Eve and gives us insight into the Cherokee’s thoughts on the power of love.