Post #1 "creation stories"

Historians have determined that history is the presence of absence of change over time.  In the times when Native Americans thrived here in North America, European influence could be seen in almost every aspect of Native American life. Such is so in the three creation stories that were selected for us to read. “The Indians of New Netherlands…”, “Origins of Ottawa Society” and “Leonard Crow Dog, Remaking the World," were all written in different times in Native American history and at different points of the European influence on them, thus changing the basis of each story greatly. With the basic principle of history being presence of absence of change over time we are able to determine the strength of the European influence.

In the first story “The Indians of New Netherlands…”, the main focus of the creation of the world seemed to lie with a women. A women who was caring and nurturing and slowly brought the new world, as we know it today, to be.  Being that this story was written in 1650 one can determine that at that particular point in history the effects of European influence were visible but not as extreme.  The Native Americans at this time seemed to be still be in tune with "Mother Nature" from whom which they believe all life came. They do however seem to have assimilated a "one supreme being" emphasis who seems to control the ebb and flow of the creation of life which could be attributed possibly to the Europeans and their Christian influence. Along with that the story also followed the lines of Christianity in the aspect of having a great flood in which all life is eliminated to be rebuilt again.

In the second story, Origins of Ottawa Society (1720), the role of women seems to have drastically decreased. Unlike the first story in which a women was portrayed as being divine and nurturing the living creatures of the world until they were able to sustain themselves. They (Native Americans) have instead used the image of a Great Hare to be there divine being. the thing that was different in this story than the other two was the lack of a great flood from which life was to flourish again. the Great Hare instead would create life from the bones of creatures that had passed on. The role of women in this story falls from divine being to being something created to do the mans bidding. The European correlation that can be made with this story again would have to be the presence of one all knowing, almighty being who controls the creation of life on earth.

The third and final creations story “Leonard Crow Dog, Remaking the World,"(1935) a drastic change from the other two before it can be seen.  There is, however, still an almighty being who controls everything.  the role of women in this story takes another drastic fall and doesn't get mentioned for anything other than just to be here for procreation. An interesting turn in this story however was that the almighty being who seemed to be able to control things absolutely, could not get the mud to create the land for himself. He had to rely on the services of the turtle to retrieve the mud to create the land.  This gives the almighty being a seeming sense of being somewhat mortal. This story does still stick with the flood in the story to spring life from.

In conclusion one could say that each of theses stories are quite different from each other easily without digging into the fact which make them so far apart in comparison.  The biggest thing between the three is the role of women and its drastic decline throughout the three stories. At first being a divine being, then a companion for men to do their bidding, to someone simply created for procreation.  perhaps from this it could be determined the originally the Native Americans valued there women greatly but through European influence there value of them dropped drastically.  The second thing that I noticed was the establishing of some mortal quality in the almighty being. perhaps with the introduction of Christianity into Native American society they began to give the almighty being in the creation stories mortal qualities and create more interaction between them and humans like in the bible when Jesus walks the earth.  Overall it is easy to see the influence of the Europeans in Native American society greatly changed the views of the Native Americans in all aspects of there lives including there creation stories

Comments

[Najla]

I liked how you started your essay with the definition of history! It caught my attention and was basically 'short and sweet'.
In your introduction you repeated "history being presence of absence of change over time" twice, in your first and last sentences. It makes your statements weaker particularly your thesis since it's a repition of your very first sentence with a few added words.This made your thesis not look as strong as it could be. You repeated the word "thing" four times in your essay, which I feel is a word too informal, vague and inappropriate for this style of essay. "Thing" can be replaced with much better words such as your second sentence in your last paragraph: "The biggest thing..." can be written as "The major DIFFERENCE...". Lastly, you have also mispelled the word woman throughout your essay (there was one exception), by using the plural 'women'.

[Najla]

(This is the corrected version)
I liked how you started your essay with the definition of history! It caught my attention and was basically 'short and sweet'.
I just have 3 suggestions on improvements. 1) In your introduction you repeated "history being presence of absence of change over time" twice, in your first and last sentences. It makes your statements weaker particularly your thesis since it's a repetition of your very first sentence with a few added words. This made your thesis not look as strong as it could be. 2) You repeated the word "thing" four times in your essay, which I feel is a word too informal, vague and inappropriate for this style of essay. "Thing" can be replaced with much better words such as your second sentence in your last paragraph: "The biggest thing..." can be written as "The major DIFFERENCE...” 3) lastly, you have also misspelled the word woman throughout your essay (there was one exception), by using the plural 'women' instead of the singular ‘woman’.

[Sam Klemz]

Hey man, I have to say it's an overall good post/essay. It had a solid introduction and good organization throughout. A few things I noticed that could be improved: (1) some basic grammar and typing errors. I know I had a few in mine mainly because I went to post it, my internet went down and by the time I got it working I was just relieved to have it up that I didn't look over it. A quick glance over usually solves most of those problems I've found. Such as a few times when the first word of a sentence isn't capitalized and stuff like that. (2) I thought the thesis could use a little more, such as an example or two of how it changed. Something to help set the reader up. (3) While I thought the conclusion was strong, it was a little long. Conclusions are generally a good place to just wrap things up and put them in a larger historical context and shouldn't introduce new ideas or information. Things like perhaps this can be attributed to so and so and ideas of where it came from should be in the supporting paragraphs and the conclusion should just be a nice little paragraph of a few sentences to wrap things up for the reader.
Overall good job!

-Sam K.