I went to the Scripps Cottage to night to listen to some presentations about American Indian Art & Spoken Word Showcase.
A group of presentation is Luiseno Storytelling Group. They are also Native Indians, and the woman graduated from SDSU! They came from the family of story telling, and that were about to give us stories about animals. It is said that a long time ago, animals on the earth were living together and they can talk. The first story they tell is Cottontails Song, which is a story between a cottontail and a coyote. The coyote heard the cottontail singing a good song and he was eager to learn it. So, the coyote went to ask the cottontail to sing it for him, but the cottontail didn’t want to. The coyote begged the cottontail for a while and the cottontail finally sang it. However, the coyote forgot how to sing it, so he went to ask the cottontail to sing it for him again, like this for three times. The cottontail got mad, so the coyote suggested having a competition of strongest Lang to win the ownership of the song, and the cottontail agreed. They found a cave and made a fire at the entrance of it, then took turns to get into the cave and see who can stay in the cave for longer time. At last the cottontail won but the coyote did not know that there is a hole in the end of the cave that for the cottontail to escape. However, the cottontail still shared the song with others. So this is the story of sharing songs.
Most Indian tales are talking about why the thing is what it likes. Another one is the telling how the red bird got her color. The raccoon made the coyote angry by saying him lazy. Then the coyote chased the raccoon to a river, the raccoon hide on a branch above the river, the coyote saw the reflection in the river and tried to catch the “raccoon” hardly. At last he is too tired and asleep. The raccoon blocked coyote’s eyes with something stick while he was sleeping. When the coyote woke up and found he blind, he was so scared and asked someone to help. The brown bird came and helped him and the coyote promised to paint her of beautiful color. So the bird colored herself red. That’s how the red bird came from.
