Essay: Nature in Native American Fairy Tales

This week I read the American Indian Fairy Tales unit, another in a long line of fairy tale units from different cultures. What stood out to me about this unit and its stories is the large role nature and the environment play. Right off the bat, the first story Iagoo the storyteller relates to the children is about winter and its harbinger the fierce North Wind (Shin-ge-bis Fools the North Wind). It also describes the warm summer land of the South Wind. Natural phenomena are given life in these stories; they have emotions, thoughts, desires, and actions. In Native American cultures, nature is not something that just happens around human beings, independent of our actions. Nature and humanity have a long-standing relationship with actions and reactions from both parties, and this idea is very prevalent in the Native American fairy tales. The characters literally interact with agents of the environment and these interactions can have negative or positive consequences.

Another story features nature prominently but in a different way, The Little Boy and the Little Girl in the Clouds. In this tale, Iagoo tells the children about a time when "all animals and men lived on friendly terms." The scene he sets in a valley sound like a paradise.

    This valley was a lovely place to live in; never was such a playground      anywhere on earth. It was like a great green carpet stretching for miles      and miles, and when the wind blew upon the long grass it was like            looking at the waves of the sea. Flowers of all colors bloomed in the        beautiful valley, berries grew thick on the bushes, and birds filled the        summer air with their songs.

The illustration that goes along with the story, shown below, certainly captures the beauty described in the quote. I haven't seen many places that I would consider to have natural beauty like this. Landscapes today are obscured by houses and skyscrapers and telephone wires. 

The beautiful valley
Illustrated by John Rae

Perhaps the reason Native American cultures appreciate nature more than modern American culture is because they can remember a time when the environment was harsh and hostile. In How Summer Came, the world is trapped in an eternal winter. I speculate that this could be a story about an ice age. If a people had a cultural, first-hand memory of what it was like to live in such a hard environment, they might be more appreciative of the much tamer environment we have now. Regardless of how it came to be, the fairy tales in this unit illustrate the greater bond and respect Native American cultures share with nature.