Reading Notes: Apache Tales, Part A


The First War

This story was fairly confusing. Bits of it were understandable, and it held traces of origin stories. I suppose, due to the name, that this is the Apache account of how the first war came about. Other than explaining this battle, there doesn't seem to be much point to this story. Raven (a man? an bird?) at the beginning performs a series of actions to see whether or not people will live, two men have a strange interaction that results with one becoming the grandson of another, and then one of the chiefs and his men fight against an enemy until they are all killed. I am not sure if there are any specifics that I would use from this story in my storytelling. However, if I were to use anything, I would use the general idea of retelling the first time that something happened. It could be an event like this, the first war, except in a different cultural setting. It could also be something entirely different, such as "the first meal," "the first sickness," or perhaps "the first laugh." These incorporate the general principle of iterating the first of a thing.

Coyote Secures Fire

I liked this story a lot more than some of the others! The plot was easy to follow, and I also found it entertaining. This story had a lot of resemblance to the storyline of the Jungle Book, where the animals are after "man's red flower," or fire. In this reading, Coyote seeks to gain the fire from the fireflies. He plays games with them, and ends up losing his hide. This was an awful image! However, he cleverly joins their group and succeeds in lighting his torch on fire. Sadly, much is burned down as a result of his theft. There are elements of this story that I would love to retell! I like to think about the animal world being fascinated with things of humans, though in this instance, it is the fireflies that possess the fire. I can imagine what it would be like for them to conspire about stealing fire, and then for them to not know what to do with it or how to control it once they had gained the flame. Retelling this, perhaps still with the Coyote, would be fun. I would like to have him work together with animals to steal the fire from a camp of humans. However, once they gain the flame, they realize that they do not have the power or the knowledge to control it, and the humans would step in to save them!

Bibliography:
"Jicarilla Apache Texts: The First War" by Pliny Goddard: online link
"Jicarilla Apache Texts: Coyote Secures Fire" by Pliny Goddard: online link

Image Information: A wolf (or coyote) with fire.
Image link: Pixabay

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