Reading Notes: Native American Marriage Tales; Part B

The first story in Part B was called "The Dog-Husband". I was excited to read the story because it started off strong, but personally it was a little different than I anticipated. It began with a girl and a dog and at night the dog would turn into a man to sleep with the little girl. Eventually the girl got pregnant and the towns people were not very happy with what happened. The town people destroyed everything and left the girl behind with the puppies she gave birth to. I think I should change the ending of the story if I decide to use this as inspiration for a new story. The ending was a little confusing to understand. The puppies became human again somehow and caught whales. There was also a Crow involved who brought the people back to the town? Not my favorite story, but there are some good ideas that can come from it.

(Puppy running) 

The next story was "The Youth Who Joined the Deer". The story began with the a hunter that had two wives. He was very fond of deer and liked to go hunting. One time he went looking for a deer that he saw the tracks in and came across a woman who wanted him to be his husband. He was then brought back to the Indians and had sex with the woman when he was not supposed to. I didn't like ending to this story very much either. The husband felt bad about leaving his other wives, but this new woman told him to not worry very much about it. Later on in the story he went out hunting and killed some deer. Their bones brought them to life somehow. I liked that idea of bringing the bones back to life as something. I would make a lot of changes to this story to make it flow better. Some aspects were good, but I would maybe add more dialogue.

The last story I wanted to mention for Part B was "The True Bride". I actually enjoyed this story. It had to do with somewhat of an evil stepmother and step sister. The stepmother sent out the other daughter to find berries in the snow even though she knew that berries did not exist in the snow. The daughter went out anyways and got help from her brothers and returned with berries and new clothes. The stepmother wanted the other daughter to do the same, but instead the daughter was rude and did not come back with nicer things. There are a lot of things I could do with the ending of the story. I like the idea of an evil stepmom and stepsister. Happily ever after fairytales are very fun and I think I could do a twist to maybe make the stepmother less evil after something bad happens to her.


Bibliography: Native American Marriage Tales by Stith Thompson