Week 9 Reading Diary: Tejas Legends

Tejas Legends

When the Storm God Rides was a great story about how the Galveston Islands came to be formed, as well as where hurricanes come from. In the story there is a Storm God who would fly on his thunder bird, Hurakan, to the main land to collect feathers from the seagulls, pelicans, and other birds for his coat. One day a killing tribe came and invaded the Indians who were peacefully living there. They cried out to the Storm God and he came and basically created a category 4 hurricane, causing parts of the land to break off thus creating islands for the Indians and birds who originally lived there to live safely and in peace. This would be a great to retell as a bedtime story, from an Indian child's perspective as an eye-witness (possibly like a news segment), or as the Storm God's diary.


Nature occurs through humanized characteristics. Native Americans gave human characteristics to natural elements, disasters, animals, and plants, and used these characteristics to explain why events occur and why things are where they are. It is an interesting alternative to the scientific reasons to why natural phenomenons occur. For example, the scientific way we know hurricanes are created, what they do, and where they start versus the Native American reasoning as to why hurricanes occur.

Natural elements (i.e., wind, rain, thunder, lightening) are generally supported, or complemented, by a plant or animal presence. Natural elements are also gods.

One of my favorite stories was The Plant That Grows in Trees. It made me think of something that would be a cartoon or Disney movie. A bird basically has a conversation with the mistletoe. The bird does not want the mistletoe to die because it enjoys its berries so much so it flies it up into the trees so that it will grow year round. There are certain parts of Texas where mistletoe actually grows up in the trees and looks like really pretty moss.

The cutest story of the bunch was The Could That Was Lost. Little white puffy cloud got lost form his brothers and sisters and was sad so he laid down on the ground to take a nap where the plants were able to drink the water from him and become beautiful. AWWW!! So cute!

It seems as though the Indians are just guests in the majority of these stories. They are not the main character, nor are they the mention often. They were thought to be one with nature, and nature being a part of them. We are all just guests on this planet and should treat it with respect.

Something to take note of was the first paragraph of each story was very similar to a summary, or foreshadowing, of what was to happen in the story. These stories were probably originally told verbally rather than written, which would explain the strange first paragraph, or maybe introduction.