Week 7 Essay: Llama vs. Lama

Llama. Not to be confused with lama.
Source: wikimedia commons

            In this week’s readings I noticed the element of the supernatural for the first time. In previous weeks, there had been peculiar events that happened, but it had always been a result of the characters’ actions. Sometimes the characters were foolish and landed themselves in a sticky situation, other times the characters were tricksters and took advantage of their foolish counterparts.

            In the Tibetan Folk Tales, the lamas, or Tibetan holy men, were commonly associated with the supernatural. For example, in The Ingratitude of Man, the king summoned his lamas to explain the supernatural activities that happened. In this particular story it was a snake that took on a supernatural role by turning into a ghost and choking the king. I thought it was very interesting to see an animal play the part of the supernatural, because in today’s culture, especially in horror films, it is usually humans that are the source of supernatural activity.

            The supernatural elements that I am more familiar with can be seen in The Story of Drashup and the Goddess. In this story, there is a man who has neither a family nor a wife. Being all alone in the world he decides to sleep away his troubles under a tree. While asleep under the tree he overhears a goddess telling the fortune of a little girl who was just born. Much to the man’s surprise, the goddess says that he, Drashup, will be the one to marry the little girl. Feeling that this is very irrational, the man attempts to kill the girl at a young age so as to avoid marrying her. However, through the supernatural power of the goddess, she does not die. In the end, in spite of his best efforts, Drashup ends up marrying the young girl.

            Interestingly enough, in addition to predicting whom the young girl would marry, the goddess also told the fortune of how she would die. Drashup also overheard this fortune. The goddess said that she would die by eating the shoulder of the mutton. Since he had not been successful in killing the girl before, Drashup knew that the goddess must be right about how the girl would die. So after they were married, he always made sure to eat the shoulder of the mutton himself. Nevertheless, one day while he was gone, the girl ate the shoulder of the mutton. As a result, she became very ill and died.   

            Although the supernatural was a recurring motif in this unit, it appeared in many different ways. More specifically the supernatural could take on the form of an animal, a human, or a goddess. Also, the supernatural was commonly associated with the lamas. Overall, the supernatural elements not only provided interesting elements to the story, but they also helped the stories progress. 

Week 7 Storytelling: Ungrateful Maggie

Maggie's dogs running away.
Source: Wikipedia

This is the story of Maggie Brown. Maggie was a very beautiful girl, on the inside that is. Despite her lovely outward appearance, Maggie had a very cold heart. As a result, Maggie did not have very many friends.

However, there was a young boy by the name of Greg who thought she was the most beautiful girl he had ever seen, and would do anything to be with her. Unfortunately, Maggie and her bitter personality would never even give Greg the time of day. One day, in spite of her lack of interest in Greg, Maggie realized that she needed him very much…

Maggie was walking her three dogs through the park when all of a sudden a stray cat darted across the sidewalk. Naturally, her dogs took off running after the cat, dragging Maggie behind them.

Although she yelled for the dogs to heal, they kept on chasing the cat. After being drug several yards across the park, Maggie finally let go of the leash. She attempted to stand up and chase after her dogs, but immediately fell back to the ground and grabbed her ankle in pain.

Hopelessly she sat there and watched her dogs run until she could no longer see them. Knowing that her dogs were gone and her ankle was hurt, Maggie began to cry.

Just then Greg happened to be walking by. Seeing that Maggie was clearly distressed, he stopped to help her. Realizing that he was her only hope, she obliged when he offered to give her a ride home.

Greg thought this might finally be his chance to win over Maggie. However, this did not prove to be the case. When Greg pulled up to Maggie’s house, he offered to walk her up to her front door. But Maggie would not have any part in that. Without so much as a thank you, she got out of his car and hobbled up to her porch.

Despite this let down, Greg would not be defeated. He suddenly came up with a great idea. He decided that he would go back to the park and find her dogs. He thought after he found her dogs and brought them back to her, there would be no way she could still turn him down.

Luckily, upon returning to the park, Greg immediately found Maggie’s dogs. The dogs were happy to see a familiar face and instantly ran up to Greg. So he loaded the dogs up and took them back to Maggie’s house.

However, Maggie was not grateful for Greg’s generous deed. In fact, she slammed the door in his face without even taking back her dogs. Realizing how selfish and coldhearted she was, Greg took Maggie’s dogs home with him. And from that day on, Greg lived happily with Maggie’s dogs, and they were very grateful for him.

Author's Note

This story was based on the Tibetan Folktale The Ingratitude of Man .  In the original story, there was a man and three animals who fell into a trench. Luckily, there was a traveler passing by who lowered a rope and rescued all of them. The man and the animals all promised to repay the traveler somehow. The traveler believed the man, but scorned the animals. He did not believe there was anyway the animals could pay him back. However, the man was very ungrateful for the traveler's help, and actually ended up landing the traveler in jail. In contrast, the animals were grateful for the traveler and helped him get out of jail. 

In my story I kept the theme of the animals being appreciative and the girl being unappreciative. I thought this was very symbolic of how people in today's society can be. 

Bibliography

Book: Tibetan Folk Tales

Author: A.L. Shelton 

Year: 1925

Web Source: Sacred Text

Week 7 Reading Diary: Tibetan Folk Tales

Tibetan Folk Tales Unit

The Story of the Donkey and the Rock

I really enjoyed reading this story. It seemed typical of a folktale at the beginning when the king decided that it was neither man's fault that the jar of oil had been broken, but rather it was either the rock's or the donkey's fault. However, it really took me by surprise when the king forced all the people who came to such a foolish trial to pay a price to leave so that the man who lost the oil would have the money he needed to take care of himself and his mother.

The Ingratitude of Man

The moral of this story was dead on with how some people can be in today's society! I thought it was very interesting that at first the man who saved everyone from the pit scorned the animals because he thought there was no way that they could ever pay him back, but was then forced to put his foot in his mouth when they were the only ones who did anything to help him. It teaches the valuable lesson of be cautious with who you trust, as well as you cannot judge a book by it's cover.

The Wise Carpenter

I truly love stories of tricksters! I find them especially entertaining when it is two tricksters competing against one another but one does not know that the other is a trickster himself. Since the painter in the story had bad intentions, I felt it was only right that he die by the way that he tried to kill the carpenter!

How the Raven Saved the Hunter

I thought it was very interesting to see the Raven play the part of a helper. After reading so many stories about animals being tricksters or being foolish, it is nice to see this change up! However, it was sad that the hunter was so foolish and killed the Raven.

The Man with Five Friends

This story proved to be very intriguing. I had never, in my own culture or any other culture, heard anything about choosing friends based on their eye color. I really enjoyed getting a glimpse into the Tibetan beliefs through this story!

The Man and the Monkeys

I liked that this was another story about animals serving as helpers. Much like the Raven mentioned above, the monkeys played the role of helping out a man. And much like the hunter mentioned above, this man was not grateful for the help the monkeys provided him and killed them. However, this story was a little sadder because the man did not feel any remorse and therefore was killed by a giant snake. It was a very deserving death!