Week 11 Story: Koyo Enters the Spirit Realm

"I'm sure this is the direction the woman pointed towards earlier", thought Koyo as he hiked through seemingly untouched portions of the woods. He had been traveling for several hours at this point and the woman mentioned she remembered the village being about 5-6 hours away, so he should be getting close.

It had only been a couple short months since Koyo had begun his quest to confront and eliminate evil beings across the land. His last successful venture consisted of him decapitating a snake chief who had been stealing all of the good pieces of meat from other members of the village leaving them with scraps to survive on for the Winter. Once he defeated the greedy chieftain he was able to distribute the meat among the poorest of the village to ensure their survival and well-being. After going from village to village performing the same actions, Koyo became a tribal legend. For many he was considered the equivalent of a native Robin Hood. Currently he was on his way to what he believed would be his final mission. He had heard rumors of a village suffering from the tyranny of a cannibal chieftain. The stories say that the chief was somewhat of a giant and consumed a member of the village each week as compensation for his protection. Should any of the villagers try to escape he would capture them, chop them up, and stew them for dinner.

The sun began to set, the wind began to pick up, and the trees of the forest began to cast tall, ominous shadows across the ground. Koyo smelled something peculiar as he walked along. Every time the breeze kicked up, he caught the scent of a sour, putrid odor coming from the direction he was walking. As he got closer he was able to distinguish a soft glow in the distance: campfires. At this point the sun had completely disappeared from the horizon and the glow of the moon began to shine through the clouds.

"I will go down to the village tomorrow when it is light", Koyo thought to himself. He found a small clearing a kilometer or so outside of the village and made camp for the night. He lit no fire that night for he did not know what kind of attitudes the villagers may have towards outsiders. "Perhaps they might all be cannibals", he pondered. Koyo went to sleep against a tree, waiting to venture into the village once the sun has been up awhile.

Rays of sunlight pierced through the brush of the forest waking Koyo. He began his trek towards the village once again but noticed a smaller puff of smoke rising above the trees not far from him. He was in no hurry to reach the village and decided he could spare some time to discover what caused the smoke. The smoke billowing up became thicker the closer he got until finally he glimpsed a homely lodge sitting in the woods. He crept up to the door, knocked, and awaited a response.

"Come in Koyo, I've been waiting for you for some time."

Hesitantly, Koyo entered the lodge and saw an elderly woman working at a table grinding some herbs together.

"Who are you, and why were you expecting me?" he asked.

"I'm called Grandmother, and once I heard of your triumph over the Snake chieftain I knew you would be on your way here. I know what goes on in the village and I assumed, correctly, that you would be interested in intervening. Before you head in to the village, you must know that the chief is protected by a curse cast upon him by the spirit of these woods. You won't be able to defeat him until you destroy the spirit."

"Grandmother, I have no way of reaching the realm of spirits and besides that I have no intention of visiting my ancestors prematurely. I have heard the stories of those who visit the Ghost Camp and never return."

"You must take these herbs I've been preparing, Koyo, and make tea out of them. I've included in here a mixture of Pine, Cedar, and Sage which, once consumed, will allow you to reach the spiritual plane. Remember, you must take only 4 sips of the tea for should you drink any more you will remain a spirit forever. By taking only 4 sips you will obtain 4 hours of time to locate and destroy the spirit."

Koyo took the herbs and sat near the fire in Grandmother's lodge. He set them in the pot and watched as it began to boil. The smell aroma was pleasant and warm, then suddenly he felt a chill race down his spine as his eyelids grew heavier and the light of the fire began to fade from his vision.

Koyo awoke suddenly and sprang to his feet. As he glanced around he noticed everything was a haze. The walls of the lodge moved out of his way like smoke, and the bright fire he remembered before closing his eyes now emitted only a soft glow. Though he had never been here before, he knew he had crossed over into the spirit world.

To be continued...


Author's Note
This story was strongly influenced by the stories of Kut-O-Yis as well as the Camp of the Ghosts from the Blackfoot Unit. I changed the name of Kut-O-Yis to something that sounded similar but wasn't as complicated to type out haha. I liked how his character helped the poor people of the community by taking away from those that were being greedy. I also really liked the spiritual aspects of the ghost camp story I had read from part A so I thought I'd try to combine the two.

Bibliography
The Camp of the Ghosts here
Stories of Kut-O-Yis begins here

Image Information
Sunset in the woods. Found here (pxhere)
Inside Grandmother's Lodge. Found here (flickr)

Reading Notes: Blackfoot Stories (Part B)

The second half of the Blackfoot Stories share the same general style as the first half. Both sets of stories attempt to convey a message or explain history and nature. The second set of stories explains the reason why certain forest animals obtained their unique physical characteristics. It is likely that the reason only the peculiar animals had stories was because they were different among most other things in nature which would beg the question of "why?'. So, the stories were used to explain unusual phenomena that the natives came into contact with during the course of their life in nature.

The Smart Woman Chief

• this story talks about the beginning of the creation of humans
• the story states that women were created before men and were created poorly so that was why they were weaker than men
• it is interesting that this native story of creation recalls women being created before man and on top of that they were more clever
• this is a stark contrast to the biblical version of creation
• the chief of the women turns Old Man into a pine tree for his bad behavior
• interesting that the woman chief has witch-like powers

Kut-O-Yis Stories

• Kut-O-Yis is compared to the Jack the Giant Killer of European stories. He kills evil monsters and people in order to help others
• I feel like he better resembles a Hercules or maybe even a Robin Hood style character. He always meets with the poor people to find out what their troubles are then tries to fix them
• He usually takes from or kills those who are greedy and have more and then gives the loot to those in need of it
• Kut-O-Yis was born of the blood clot of a buffalo as it was being stewed in a hot pot
• the number four seems to have some special significance in the Blackfoot tribe, I should look it up to find out more information
• Kut-O-Yis, after helping his parents get rid of an evil son-in-law, goes from town to town liberating the most poor from the greed of the town chiefs
• In each town he helps the starving elderly folk by killing the chief that hordes all of the good meat
• first town he kills bears
• second town he kills snakes
• third he kills a demigod-like entity known as the Wind Sucker
• when he killed an animal, he always left one female to be able to continue breeding for the species
• fourth he kills a man-eater who was chief of a village
• he allows himself to be devoured four times and comes back to life each time before eventually killing the man
• Kut-O-Yis as a character seeks out justice for those who have been done wrong but at the same time he is, to some extent, merciful to those he punishes

Kut-O-Yis faces the man-eater of the fourth village.

Bibliography

The Blackfoot Unit

Image Information: The Cannibal found on wikipedia.

Reading Notes: Blackfoot Stories (Part A)

For this week I read stories originating from the Blackfoot Indian tribe. The stories I read often served the purpose of describing an aspect of nature. They would explain the relationship between different seasons, why some animals migrate each year, and how to pray to the gods of the different weather entities.

The Wolf Man

• A man has two bad wives that never help at home or pull their weight around the house
• They become upset that he moved their family away from the village so they plot to kill their husband
• They place his regular sitting spot over a concealed pit fall which he ends up falling into and becomes badly injured
• he used a buffalo skull as a seat
• The wives leave him to die and return to the village and pretend to be sad
• A pack of wolves came, and one of them helped the man out of the pit and took him back to their elder wolf who healed him
• The man becomes a brother to the wolves and when he was cured by the old blind wolf, he received a wolf head and hands
• In return for their help, the man lived with the wolf pack and tripped the snares of the locals before the wolves would get trapped so they could roam freely and get their meat
• the villagers seem to automatically know it is the man-wolf tripping the snares so it may be interesting to write an about an event that makes the existence of the man-wolf known to them
• Eventually the villagers capture the man-wolf and bring him into the light of the lodge where they recognize him
• they suggest that he punishes the wives who treated him poorly but he leaves their judgement up to them

Examples of some common signs of the Plains Indians.

The Camp of the Ghosts

• A man's wife passes away and he can't live without her so he tries to go to the spirit lodge to bring her back
• The old woman goes to the ghost camp to try to bring back with her the spirits of the some of the man's relatives so that he could be guided by them to the camp
• if the man were to open his eyes at any point during the trip he would die and never come back
• he had to lie to the spirits saying that his grandmother requested he come so that he would gain entrance to the ghost camp
• The chief ghost burnt sweet pine to mask the scent of living human which allowed other ghosts to get close to the man
• The man had to stay in the ghost camp for four days before he would be able to see his wife and begin to take her back
• At the end of the 3rd night, the ghosts gave the man the Worm Pipe and his wife's spirit
• The man had to keep his eyes shut for all four days of the journey back to the village and once he got there they had to sit in a sweat lodge outside of the village
• had they not done this the man would die and his wife would disappear
• The old woman took back her medicines and the man became human again
• would be interesting to write about what kind of medicines the man took that allowed him to enter the spiritual plane

Bibliography

Blackfoot Indian Unit

Image information: Signs of the Plains Indians found on wikipedia