Week 11 Extra Credit Reading Notes: Apache Tales, Part A

 

"Frog" Source

The Swallowing Monster:

    This story is about a group of hunters looking for deer. One night one of the girls left the tipi to get some water at the nearby stream when she happened upon a dead deer on the ground. She went back to the group to tell them what she saw and they ended up bringing the deer back as food. This happened three more times. 

    One of the people looked out of the tipi when it became dark and saw a monster. The group knew that they must get away so they put together a plan. One of the members would yell as though they were a baby, one would shout like they were a young boy, one would laugh as though they were a young girl, and the last needed to yell like they were a grown man. 

    The group ran for it and the monster began hunting them one by one. Each person began yelling like the people they had to impersonate and the monster started to get confused, but after some time the monster found them and started swallowing them. The monster swallowed all of the people except for the little girl. 

    The little girl found the home of a spider who hid the girl from the monster and kept her safe. The monster went to the spider's house and asked for the girl but the spider would not give her to him and ripped the monster in half. The spider's wife was jealous of the little girl and fastened a swing so that the girl would swing on it. The girl did just that and on the second swing, she fell into some water and turned into a frog. 

    This story was so confusing to keep up with, but I guess that is just the style of it or maybe the translation. It is interesting, to say the least. 

Bibliography: "The Swallowing Monster" by Pliny Earle Goddard (1911)