Topic Research: Environmental Stories
A satellite image of coastal winds taken by NASA.
(Source: Earth Observatory - NASA)
For my project, I think I am going to focus on an environmental theme where I could maybe have a collection of stories that each correspond to an element in nature such as air, water, fire, earth/soil, etc.
This story talks about a world in which fire had never existed before, but one day, the Gods sent fire down to an island, on which all of the animals that lived there tried to get to the fire. All of these different kinds of animals, from owls, to snakes, to four-footed animals had weaknesses that made them vulnerable to the heat of the flame, making them fail, but at the end, a little spider goes and grabs one of the burning coals under the fire and the animals had fire forever. I think that I want to switch up the story and instead of fire, I might do something like "the first stream" or "the first winds".
Story source: Myths of the Cherokee by James Mooney (1900).
How the North Wind Lost His Hair (Tejas legend)
This story is about a battle between the north wind and the south wind in which the north wind is personified as old and disliked and the south wind was seen as young, warm, and loved. I am going to rewrite this story and personify one of the winds as calm, bringing growth and health to the world, while the other wind is a force of destruction and climate change.
Story source: When the Storm God Rides: Tejas and Other Indian Legends retold by Florence Stratton and illustrated by Berniece Burrough (1936).
As-Ai-Yahal was a god in this story that was traveling and came across a home of people that were frozen because the cold East Wind would not stop blowing. As-ai-yahal finessed the East Wind into not blowing over the people again, prompting the ice from East Wind's cold presence to melt and then the people could once again access the herring in a river that was previously frozen. I could make East Wind a warm wind instead of one that freezes everything he touches, but that might force me to choose between this story and the one that I mentioned right before this one. I might also consider making East Wind the protagonist of the story in which the people beg him to come cool them down because of excessive heat due to environmental stress.
Story source: Myths and Legends of the Pacific Northwest, especially of Washington and Oregon, by Katharine Berry Judson (1910).
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