Phillip Whitney

September 20, 2010

Storytelling Questions

1. There were many different characters, there were humans skeletal and

otherwise, there was a porcupine, a beaver, a bear, a giant mosquito man and

his son, and there was a Puffin king and other puffins

2. Some of the stories provided the classical fairy tale moral at the end style.

The story, how Mosquitoes were made, is about the pesky little buggers that

plague all of humanity. The beaver porcupine and bear story was about good

friends and how they come and go like the tides, or the phases of the moon.

3. The problem in the mosquito story was how do they kill the giant mosquito

man that’s eating them all? In the beaver story bear want to eat the beaver

and the porcupine saves him but they have a fight and then don’t talk for

awhile.

4. The solution to the mosquito one was to kill the mosquito man. The beaver

and porcupine realized that they were friends but not as close as they were

before.
5 The literature increased my understanding of native Alaskan cultures, by

introducing me to their culture their beliefs as a people and by explaining nature a

little bit. The stories all varied from group to group, but that’s good. The

presentation method of these stories was also good in helping convey their

message.

The stories introduced me to their culture by way of their life stories. They

explained how the woman got from point a to point b with little food and in the

middle of winter. This means that they had good winter clothing brought around by

trial and error.

The stories also explained the little annoying pesks that plague the world,

why some friends come and go, and why puffins have the white tuft on their

forehead… They are used for teaching and to show the glory of the peoples. So we

should learn from these stories.

If you looked at a story from one of these groups and compared it to the

story of another they would certainly have similarities. They may have the same

subject matter but it might be delivered in a different way with more/less detail

and action.
 So my understanding of the native groups is that none two are alike but they

share many of the same characteristics and goals for life.