 |
| Taos Pueblo, New Mexico (Source) |
These stories in this collection are a very close translation of traditional Apache stories. As such, they do not always make the most sense, and are very vague with a lot of their words. Something I noticed in particular was the use of pronouns, which was particularly confusing. I hope that when I am rewriting my own story, I can do it a lot more clearly so that the reader understands and knows exactly what is going on.
In one of the stories, Naiyenesgani, a monster hunter, is commissioned by a tribe of people to go and rescue some of their families from a kind of swamp monster that is guarding them. He uses four different hoops to drain the water, then goes in and kills the monster. The hoops are black, blue, yellow, and mixed colors, which also happen to be the same colors that the are centered in many of these stories. Whenever I write my story, I will make sure to incorporate this.
In other stories, which are often a mix of several different tales, Naiyenesgani kills many different monsters, including a scary witch with teeth -ahem- everywhere. That was a disturbing story. Another was that of a child which transformed itself into a bear, which then killed other children and terrorized the local tribes. Naiyenesgani finds the heart of the bear and kills it, stopping the bear and saving the rest of the men. It was really a dark story, like many of these stories, so I think I will have some good leeway to write something very twisted.
Story Source: Jicarilla Apache Texts, compiled by Pliny Earle Goddard (1911)
Comments
Post a Comment