African Stories (Lang) - Reading Diary B

The second half of the African Stories unit contained stories of Hassebu, The Heart of a Monkey, and Makoma. I found the story of Makoma to be the most interesting of them all. Makoma was born a big and strong man, so it was evident that he was different from other humans from the start. When his mother asked what he should be called, he told her to have all of the great men of the village gather at a river. At the river, he asked them all who would jump into the river and fight the crocodiles. When none of the men volunteered, he did it himself. Thus, he became known as Makoma, which translates to “the greater”. He then traveled through the lands to find a new home. Along the way, he encountered several different giants and defeated them with his iron hammer. The fact that he carried an iron hammer as a weapon reminds me of Thor. After defeating the giants, they shrank and he took them as servants. He eventually found plains with game and many trees and decided to make it his home. There, he was told by a voice that he must go find and fight Sakatirina, the biggest and strongest giant of them all. He traveled until he found the home of Sakatirina. The legs of the giant were said to look like mountains, and the rest of his body was not visible because it was above the clouds. The two fought endlessly with no winner. Eventually, a god told them that they were both so great that they would live in the heavens with the gods, and that was the end of the story. This story also reminds me of Heracles, as a single man defeats several fierce enemies and becomes a god because of it.

(Image of Makoma jumping into the pool of crocodiles. Source: Un-textbook)

African Stories (Lang) - Reading Diary A

For my week 7 reading diary, I have chosen to read the African Stories unit by Lang. The first story, titled "Motikatika", is about a family and an ogre. The story starts by telling of a woman who refuses to eat anything and is beginning to fall ill. She tells her husband she will only eat honey. He goes to find her honey, but the honey he returns with is not good enough for her. This happens several times until he finally offers her the purest of honey. She eats it and gets better, but now her husband is angry with her. To get even with her, he tells her to fetch him water. Several times, she leaves and comes back with water that he refuses to drink. Finally, she travels to a lake to fetch pure water. As she is filling the pale with water, though, an ogre emerges from the lake and asks why she is taking his water. She replies and tells him that he can have her baby in exchange for water. She tells him that the sides of the baby’s head will be shaved, he will have white beads, and he will answer to the name “Motikatika”. What the mother did not know is that her baby was a magician and he heard everything that she said. He turned to some magical bones for advice. They told him to gather all babies in the village, shave their heads, give them white beads, and told them to answer to “Motikatika”. When the ogre came and called that name, numerous babies responded. The ogre went to the mother and told her of this, so she developed another plan for the ogre to get her baby. The baby spoiled this plan and the next as well. Eventually, the baby tricked the ogre into eating his father. The mother was upset, but the baby told her that he should be eaten because it was he who sent her to fetch water. The whole concept of this story was strange to me. A baby magician and a mother offering her baby to an ogre just for a pale of water is a little odd, but the story made for an interesting read. 

(Drawing of an ogre and a woman. Source: Un-Textbook)

Chinese Fairy Tales - Reading Diary A

This week I chose to read the Chinese Fairy Tales unit. This unit includes several short fairy tales about animals, magic, and some other supernatural themes. Some of these stories seemed kind of odd to me. For example, the Cave of the Beasts seemed to have an odd plot. It started off with a man going into the woods and discovering seven wild duck eggs to cook and eat. He returned home and had his wife cook them. He intended to eat them with her, but not share any of them with his daughters. When his first daughter woke up and saw her mother cooking them, she asked what they were. The mother told her she could have one if she did not tell her sisters. Then another sister walked in and the same thing happened. This kept happening until all of the eggs were gone. The father was mad when he returned home, so he tried to lead his daughters into the forest to be killed by wolves. This part seemed really odd to me- a father wanted to kill his daughters because they ate the eggs that their mother gave them. When the father left two of his daughters in the forest, they searched for shelter. They found a cave with a stone blocking the entrance, so they moved the stone and entered. There were stones and jewels inside that glowed and produced a light. The cave was the home to a fox and a wolf. The girls found two beds inside and slept in them. When they woke up, they found the fox and the wolf asleep in the warm kettles. They were scared so the trapped the animals in the kettles and kindled the fire. The animals told the girls they wouldn’t hurt them and begged for them to free them. The girls ended up killing the animals though. Eventually, the father came back and found the girls along with all of the jewels and stones. He took all of them and the family lived happily ever after. This seems like a very weird ending to a story that involves a father trying to kill his daughters over food, the daughters killing a harmless fox and wolf, and the father stealing all of the jewels.
 

(Photo of a cave with a stone guarding the entrance. Source: geograph.org)

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Ancient Egyptian Myths and Stories - Reading Diary B

The second half of the Ancient Egyptian Myths unit included the story of the two brothers, the Book of Thoth, and the tale of King Rhampsinitus. The story of the two brothers was a good read. Two brothers, Bata and Anpu, lived together with Anpu's wife. Bata had the duty of tending to the oxen, and he lived in the stables with them at nights. One day, he and Anpu were working together in the fields to plant seeds. When they needed more seeds, Bata ran to the house to fetch them. Anpu's wife was in the house at the time, and she told Bata that she often thought about him. Bata responded by telling her that she was like a mother to him and Anpu was like a father and that she could not say those things. Later when Anpu returned to the home after the day's work, his wife turned the story around and told him that Bata wanted her but she refused, so Bata beat her. This angered Anpu, so he plotted to slay his brother. His brother could hear the words of the oxen, though, and they warned him that his brother was in the stables waiting to slay him. Bata ran and, eventually, the gods placed a river full of crocodiles between him and his brother so that his brother could not reach him. Eventually the truth came out and Anpu returned to his home and killed his wife, while Bata traveled to the flowering acacia to make a new home. Bata concealed his soul in the highest blossom of the acacia. He was given a wife, the most beautiful wife and the making of Ra, the sun god, for his duties. She was the only one that knew of his secrets. She was taken by the king of Egypt after he encountered a lock of her hair and wanted to have her for himself. The king sent his men to cut down the flowering acacia, and with it Bata's soul. Bata died because of this, and eventually his brother discovered his body. His brother found a seed though, so he planted it and Bata came back to life. Bata was made into a sacred bull when he was reborn, though, and he traveled to the Egyptian king. There, he told his wife that he was still alive and that it was her fault that the acacia tree was cut down. She ordered to have the bull killed though. The bull bled into the soil, and two trees grew. Those trees were also Bata, and they told the wife of that as well. She then ordered to have the trees cut down and made into chairs. A wood chip entered her mouth when they were being cut down, though, and she became pregnant. Her son became the king of Egypt when the other king passed, and he told everyone that he was Bata. Bata ended up ruling the lands until he died and his brother became the ruler. 

(Bata and Anpu's wife by Guido Reni. Source: Wikipedia)

Ancient Egyptian Myths and Stories - Reading Diary A

This week I chose to read the Ancient Egyptian Myths and Stories from Donald Mackenzie's works. The story of The Secret Name of Ra was interesting to me. In Egyptian myth, Ra was the son of the god Nu, and he created all of the things on the earth. He was the divine king and he had many names. One of his names was the most important though, as it gave him his power. A goddess named Isis was jealous of his power and wanted to share it, so she created a serpent and hid it from all eyes. That serpent bit the king Ra and made him very sick and brought him much pain. Isis came forward and said that she could heal Ra, but only if he told her his secret name that gave him his power. This story was interesting to me because of the whole idea that knowing a name can give you all of the power in the world. In other stories, Ra is called the sun god. It is said that Horus possesses the eyes of Ra, which are the sun and the moon. This whole concept seems a little strange to me, but there are similar stories in Greek and Roman mythology. 

In the story of The Sun's Journey, Ra's journey to enter the heavens is described. To get there, he must pass through twelve divisions and face different challenges in each. Many of the divisions present Ra and his barque with serpents and other reptiles to battle. Some of the creatures described in this story are hard to picture- such as Sokar, the underworld god who has three human heads, a serpent's body, and the wings of a hawk. Eventually, Ra makes it through all of these challenges and into the heavens. Some of the characters described in this story are extremely creative. The sphinx and Osiris are two characters from this story that I have heard about before. 

(Ra on the solar boat. Source: Wikipedia)

The Life of Buddha - Reading Diary A

This week I chose to read The Life of Buddha (1922) by Andre Ferdinand Herold. I don't know much about Buddhism or the life of Buddha, but I know that it is a very common religion in some parts of the world. From this reading, I learned that Buddha (born Siddhartha) was meant to be "he who seeks great knowledge" before his mother was even pregnant with him. The gods told his mother and father, Queen Maya and King Suddhodana of Sakya, that they would bring the one that holds the true knowledge into the world because of their fortune, virtue, and nobility. I thought it was very interesting that everyone knew how important Siddhartha was as soon as he was born, as all of the problems in the city seemed to disappear immediately. When he first visited the temple of the gods, they bowed to him and told him that he would bow to nobody. 

The fact that his father tried to hide all of the bad things from him also came as a surprise to me. When Siddhartha wanted to leave the castle, his father made his servants clear the roads of all beggars and elderly people. Siddhartha saw nothing but happiness until the gods placed an elderly man in the street. Siddhartha saw this and learned that all people will eventually suffer from old age, which makes him unhappy and very distraught. The same happens two more times on Siddhartha's next two trips, but he discovers illness and death. He learns that all lives will end with death, which deeply saddens him- he does not understand how people can be happy when all lives will end with that fate. 

(Painting of Buddha by Otgonbayar Ershuu. Source: Wikipedia)