Reading Notes: The Boy and the Turtles

I am so excited for this week's readings as it is Native American week! I love Native American art and stories. They are always so creative and fun to read no matter how short or long the story is. It was a difficult decision on what story to read and how good those stories were going to be. After a long deliberation with myself I decided on the Sioux stories as I thought they were unique and really fun to read. The first story I decided on was the Boy and the Turtles. One thing I noticed immediately when reading was the fact that it was mostly from a third person perspective. I am usually not huge fan of reading third person as it isn't as personal as first person, but the the author does an amazing job with creating a story that effectively uses third person. The story started very normal and seemed it was just going to be a story about a young boy hunting and faced some adversity as he couldn't find any turtles until he went to a lake that his tribe was very familiar with. It seems normal until what comes out of the water. Little men began to come out of the water which is a tad disturbing and scared the boy as it should have. The story continued as the boy left and after a few conversations, warriors were sent down to the lake to see if the boy was lying. The warriors saw the same thing and were as scared as the boy. The boy was given a seat in the council and that seat was a seat of honor. The boy was also given the name "Wankan Wanyanka" which means he sees holy. The story itself was very interesting with the crazy turn it made. I wasn't expecting the drastic turn that occurred at the lake. I was expecting something to happen, but not to the effect of little men coming out of the water. I really enjoyed the weird twist the story had. It gave the story some more information to be able to analyze as not every story has a turn like that. I am definitely glad I chose this story section as it is going to be an awesome time to be able to read these stories.

Turtles sunbathing at a lake https://images.app.goo.gl/8pYCyPG1GQ2TiB4a9

Bibliography: http://mythfolklore.blogspot.com/2014/06/sioux-boy-and-turtles.html