Reading Notes: Alaskan Legends (B)

Title: Origin of the Winds
Author: Katharine Berry Judson
Link: Story link.

Plot:

• A man and a woman are lonely without any children of their own, so the man goes to carve a small wooden child out of a tree trunk and the woman outfits him with doll-sized amenities.
• "Doll" comes to life and, rather than thanking his caretakers, promptly leaves.
• Doll walks to the corners of the world and notices a number of patches that are covering holes in the sky. He cuts the patches loose and each hole allows in wind, as well as bringing in features that are related to the hole's geographic location.
• e.g. the southern hole brings warm wind; the northern hole brings snow and a brutally cold wind; etc.
• Doll, pleased with his work, commands the wind to blow differently from time to time. He allows the wind to blow how it wants -- it is random and has no scheduled structure.
• Doll returns to the village where he was made, but we know nothing more of his relationship (or lack thereof) with his "parents."

Setting:

• This tale would have originated from a region that was inhabited by the Yup'ik (or Cup'ik, depending on what source you read) people. At first, I was surprised to read that many of the Alaskan families who trace their lineage back to these peoples still live by the traditional subsistence hunter-gather ways of their ancestors until I remembered that I had actually read about that in the intro blog post of one person in this class. Kind of a funny coincidence that that information would come up twice this semester.

A woman's parka, used by people of this region to combat the brutal climate. Source: Wikimedia Commons.

Characters:

• Man/Woman: Couple who have no children of their own. They are lonely, and carve a small doll out of wood. They treat it as if it were a child.
• Doll: Wise beyond his years, and powerful, as he seems to be only a child. He is responsible for the creation of an aspect of the world (sort of like Raven) and he appears to care little for his "parents." 

Writing Style:

• This one isn't quite as clinical to read as the Raven stories -- and I always like a good creation myth, so that's a plus -- but it's still not especially exciting or vivid. The point of tales like this aren't to entice the reader and seduce them with imagery and plot intrigue, but rather to simply explain a modern phenomenon. It accomplishes its goal efficiently and ends.