Brazilian Folktales
Dear friends from Arizona,
We´d like to share with you some Brazilian Folktaltes we talked about in our class. We decided to share with you because these are stories which are part of our tradition.
How about you? Can you remember any folktale of your own culture?
We had much fun in class being reminded of those tales who were part of our childhood...
We hope you like them.
More coming soon.
Carla
posted by Dennis @ 6:43 PM
4 Comments:
We have a folktale about The Devils peak in South Dakota, our first national monument. An Indian princess was trying to escape from a great giant bear and hid on top of a mountain. The bear scratched at the peak, trying to get up, but could not. If you look up the Devils Peak on the internet, you will see the grooves in the rock.
Ruben
Carla said...
Interesting story! It's amazing to notice that the different peoples create stories for all kinds of natural resources forces and human situations in a way to have some control over nature and men.
Carla
I thought you might be interested in more information about Devil's Peak (Devil's Tower), which Ruben mentioned. To see the rock formation and read about its importance to Native Americans, go HERE.
Dennis
Hi, Carlinha and everyone.
I think it's interesting how folktales become localized. We've all heard, for example, stories about mysterious animals (the Loch Ness monster, the yeti / sasquatch / "Bigfoot," etc.) Where I grew up, there were two local variations: the big cat (presumably a panther) and the big snake (no particular kind of snake). When I was a kid, these stories surfaced every few years.
The one about the big cat was plausible since in Southern Illinois, forests make a connection with areas as far away as Florida, where wild panthers still exist. As for the snake, who knows? I suppose it could have been an otter or beaver or something—or maybe even a large fish.
Then there are the modern "urban legends" (alligators and giant rats in the New York sewers or the disappearing hitch hiker, for example). I suppose these are well on the way to becoming modern folktales.
I also thought it was very interesting that Mariana and I had both heard, locally, the variation of "the man with the sack."
Dennis
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