Cherokee Stories Extra Reading Diary

Cherokee Stories Table of Contents

I really enjoyed this unit. One of my favorite stories was the How the World was Made. This story was obviously about how the world or Earth came to be. I have always enjoyed stories about the beginning of time or Earth because everybody has different beliefs and perceptions of this concept. The different stories about the beginning kind of reflects the values and beliefs of the relevant cultures and that is why I find it interesting. In this particular telling of how the world came to be, it describes the world as  floating and being held by cords. And it describes men and women came after animals and plants.


I also thought the story of The First Fire was interesting. A lightning struck a sycamore tree and sparked the first fire. All of the animals admired this new creation. They all wanted to capture it. The Raven, the little Screech-owl, Hooting Owl, Horned Owl, and the blacksnake attempted to capture this fire but failed to. But then a water spider appeared asserting that she could bring the--  fire back. She spun a thread and wove the thread into a tusti bowl and attached it to her body and journeyed to the fire. Upon her arrival at the fire, she placed the fire into her bowl and came back. And that is how we go our first fire.

(Strawberry

And my third favorite story was the story of the Origin of Strawberries. This story begins with a man and woman who fall out of love. The woman leaves the man but the man follows her. The man still wants her. The Sun pitied him and tried to help him win his wife back. He does so by springing up a bush of strawberries in front of the woman. The woman picks up the strawberry and turns west and her memories of her husband resurfaced, causing her to miss him. She returned to her husband and they went home together.