Magic and the Supernatural
in the British North American Unit
There is a good amount of
supernatural things going on in many of the stories in the British North American unit. While not necessarily dominant themes in the unit, it is common
in the stories for there to be characters that have some kind of ability to do
supernatural things. In these tales many people can shape shift at a whim,
inanimate objects can talk, and even ordinary people are capable of
supernatural things under the right circumstances.
“The Making of Lakes andMountains” is a good example of acts of magic that seem almost accidental. In the
story a woman flees from some bears that have captured her, and along the way
throws various things onto the ground. In this story hair oil becomes a lake,
pieces of a whetstone becomes mountains, and even hair combings become a mass
of trees. Although seemingly a normal woman, this protagonist is capable of
achieving miraculous things with use of the most mundane of objects. It’s notable
that at the beginning of the story, it says that “[the woman] wanted to escape,
and she remembered to do as she was told.” The passage then goes on to describe
how, after she combed her hair, she gathered her combings together, then got
some hair oil, a whetstone, and some red ochre before setting out. Now I wasn’t
exactly sure what to make of this “she did as she was told” statement at first,
but it seems to me that the woman had been told by some other person at some
point how to properly escape from a dangerous situation. Thus her use of
objects like the hair oil came from faith in a person’s advice. Thus this story
can be seen as a way of validating that, when we are danger, we should look to the
wisdom that has handed down to us by others. Because the woman in this story
did this, she was not only able to escape, but also perform great feats that
literally transformed the landscape of the world. Even the small things we do
can have big effects this story seems to be saying.
The most obvious supernatural
element that stands out in “Wolverene and Rock” is the fact that a rock and a
wolverine can both talk in this story. Anthropomorphism of even inanimate
objects is common in Native American tales from what I’ve observed, and so this
isn’t a particularly unique supernatural story element, but it’s still worth
noting. The other supernatural element in this story is the arrival of Thunder
and Lightning. Thunder and Lightning is not only portrayed as being an
individual with his own agency, but also Wolverene’s brother. The world in these
stories is one where every aspect of nature is sentient, and on some level
related. This is a great illustration of the Native American world view, which
holds to the idea that everything in nature is related and has some kind of
effect—whether direct or indirect—on every other element in nature.
The characters in the story who
possess magical abilities that they actively use in the story are normally
tricksters like Coyote. In “Coyote and Fox,” we see two tricksters pitted
against each other who use their magic to gain the upper hand against the
other. For example, in retaliation for eating his food, Coyote uses magic to create
fire to burn Fox, but Fox in turn counters by setting back the fire with his
powers. Later, after Coyote has stolen Fox’s robe of silver-fox skins, Fox
summons a wind to blow the garment off of Coyote and back to its original
owner. In most Native American stories I’ve read Tricksters are ascribed
supernatural abilities such as these, perhaps in order to give them less
limitations in their ability to trick others. In any case the use of magic
certainly makes the stories more compelling and surprising.
The world showed in the stories
of this unit is one where the limitations we normally place on nature are surpassed.
Magic and the supernatural is a matter of course in most of the narratives.
Tricksters use it at their whim, and even “normal” individuals like the woman
in the first story I discussed do magical things. Rocks, wolverines, and
thunder and lightning are anthropomorphized and even made to be related, and in
this way the view that all of nature is related is expressed. As w hole the
stories in this unit are not only rich and entertaining, but very thematic and
clever in the way the supernatural is portrayed.
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| Silver fox (Un-textbook) |
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