Reading Notes: Tejas Legends, Part A
Why the Woodpecker Pecks
Story source: When the Storm God Rides: Tejas and Other Indian Legends retold by Florence Stratton and illustrated by Berniece Burrough (1936).Plot:
The woodpecker pecks at the dead wood.
He is smart and moves if you look at him
Woodpeckers used to be Indians.
There was a plant called a mescal plant. When you ate of it you had visons of gods and ancestors.
Only medicine men had this right to use the plants.
One boy didn't listen and tried the plants and fell asleep.
The next day the boy told the other boys what he had seen and they all went out to try them and also saw strange visions.
The boys told their fathers and their fathers told their mothers until everyone was eating them.
They eventually stopped hunting, and doing chores until all anyone did was sit around and eat this plant.
Parents forgot children, so the children started to wander the woods for food.
One woman did not eat the plant and noticed all the children leave. She alerted the other parents and they all cried.
What had happened was the god Manitou hid the children inside hollow trees so they could be safe.
When Manitou saw the parents searching for their children he told them that they were inside the trees. Then he turned them into birds and promised to turn them to humans again when they found their kids.
This is how they remain to this day.
Thoughts:
I loved how this story took an action that seemed so arbitrary and gave meaning to it. I knew this was a story I would remember for a long time. It is interesting to see how these stories give meaning and complexity to things that I don't even bother to question. Things I accept to be just how they are, become logical actions proposed through thease tales.
I think if I were to adapt this story to my own purpose I would seek out another arbitrary aspect of nature and attempt to give it new meaning in a similar fashion.
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