LITERATURE QUESTIONS
NATIVE AMERICAN LITERATURE
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Question
[CLICK ON ANY CHOICE TO KNOW THE RIGHT ANSWER]
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“The Sky Tree”
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“Coyote Finishes His Work”
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“How America Was Discovered”
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“The Sun Still Rises in the Same Sky”
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Detailed explanation-1: -“The Sky Tree” is a creation myth of the Huron tribe who lived northeast of the Great Lakes. This myth is an example of an earth-diver myth because it involves a living being diving down into the water to retrieve mud that will be spread onto the back of the Great Turtle.
Detailed explanation-2: -Obayashi gives the following example as an Altaic “earth-diver” myth: At the birth of the earth, there was no ground, but water. God and the first man (or the devil) hovered over the primeval ocean in the forms of two wild geese. Then, God asked the man to fetch some soil from the bottom of the ocean.
Detailed explanation-3: -In “The Sky Tree”, a creation myth (an earth diver myth), Aataentsic (At-tent-sick) (the Earth Mother) cuts down the SkyTree (the Tree of Life) because her ailing husband, the chief (the Great Spirit) of Sky Land (Heaven or the Garden of Eden) asks her for the tree’s healing fruit.
Detailed explanation-4: -In the earth-diver myth, the primordial waters cover all, until after overcoming great perils, a certain creature is able to dive down into the waters and retrieve a small bit of magical soil. This xirang-like soil then magically expands into the land areas of today.
Detailed explanation-5: -With the wind she laid a golden egg and for ages she sat upon this egg. Finally life began to stir in the egg and out of it rose Eros, the god of love. One half of the shell rose into the air and became the sky and the other became the Earth. Eros named the sky Uranus and the Earth he named Gaia.