Week 11 Reading (Native American Tales)

For the Native American Unit, I chose Cherokee stories because I am Cherokee and haven't been as exposed to my culture as I would have liked. When I was in Elementary school, Native Education was something that was very important in my district, however, I grew up in the Creek Nation, so that is where most of the things I know about my culture have come from. I decided for my first reading to do the story of how the world was made because this seems to be the theme that I focus on in a lot of my assignments lately. 

The Cherokee story of how the world began is very different from many other cultures. The world, according to tradition, consisted of only water. There was a water beetle on the surface of the water that searched for somewhere to go, but could not find land, so he dove to the bottom of the water and pulled up a piece of mud, which began to grow and spread and became what we now call earth. The story continues to show how the gods and animals worked together to make the many landforms that we know now as mountains and streams, etc. 

Though this story is very interesting, it doesn't really fit into my theme that I want for my portfolio. I really enjoyed reading it and I cannot wait to read more stories from this section. 

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