Reading Notes Part B: Mississippi Valley and the Great Lakes

For this reading notes I decided to read a different part of the stories besides from the California tribe. I felt like I learned a lot from the California stories and wanted to learn more about different tribes which I did. They are really different when you think about it because the California stories were mostly about how the world started but the Mississippi Valley and the Great Lakes was about that a little too but more about the struggle between man and animals and also getting enough food for everyone.

One story stuck out to me particularly which was about a boy who wanted food and decided to do a fast so that he may have a revelation. He had his revelation in the form of another boy and they wrestled for a couple of days around the same time. The boy that was the revelation was trying to help and basically died so that the boy doing the fast could get food. He said that the boy with the revelation must bury him and come clean his grave everyday. The next day when the boy with the revelation came he saw that there was corn in place of the grave and this is how he was granted corn.

Another story that stood out to me was the story on how all Native American tribes have tobacco. There was a man who wanted tobacco and asked a giant for some but the giant said to come back in a year. The man then grabbed a bag of tobacco and ran away from the giant and killed him. He then decided to take seeds from the tobacco and handed them out to tribes so that they all had tobacco with them forever.

Their way of telling stories is very interesting to me and a bit different from the California tribe but it is almost the same stories in a way. Just about the struggles they all faced in the beginning.

Tobacco Plant, Source

Mississippi Valley and the Great Lakes