First Week Blog

I found many aspects of class this week interesting especially the demise of some civiliations that were more advanced than I was under the impression that they would be. I already did not believe in most of the stereotypes surrounding Native American culture because I had taken an American History class prior to this and knew how false the majority of them were but the advanced nature of the societies we discussed this week was extremely interesting, especially the architecture. I hope that I am able to visit some of those sites one day.
Another aspect of class that I found interesting was the creation stories, especially the Navajo emergence story that is given in our book. I had recently been studying the creation stories of some of the major religious groups in this country and the misogynistic overtones in them (some more blatant than others) on my own. I was suprised to note that there are some slight similarities. Not to say that Native Americans are misogynistic because that would be untrue but the story had some similar features. For example, in certain religions the first woman is blamed for most or all of the downfall of humanity. In the Navajo story we were assigned to read, the females creatures are left alone and begin acting what the story calls lazy and wicked. It is also the first woman behind the plot to kidnap the water buffalo's children because she is supposedly bored ("troubled by the monotony of life"), which is the catalyst for the great flood of the third world. I enjoyed the story a great deal because I have a very good friend that is Navajo. I simply thought it was very interesting to read when I had just been studying other creation stories. I would be interested in reading the other Navajo stories and creation stories of other Native American groups to compare.