Reading Notes, Week 10, Pleiades and Pine, Part A.

 

Origin of the Pleiades and the Pine, Myths of the Cherokee by James Mooney:

• Seven boys = six stars known as the Pleiades, while one becomes the pine.
• Aetiological story from a North American perspective.
• An unusual punishment for children playing: making the boys stones for dinner instead of corn since they've been avoiding working in the cornfields.
• An awkward/unfair punishment will lead to consequences for the originator.
• Important details for a microfiction:
1. Boys were playing, and their mothers were angry as a result
2. The mothers made gatayu'sti stones into the boys dinner, thus provoking them.
3. The boys dance around the townhouse, and begin ascending into the sky where their mothers can't reach them; however, one does get caught but sinks into the earth
4. The six boys become the Pleiades, and the one mother cried over where her son sank into the earth until day by day, the pine began to grow

The Nebra sky disk, dated circa 1600 BC. The cluster of dots in
the upper right portion of the disk is believed to be the Pleiades.

(Wikipedia Commons)

• There's not necessarily a moral to the story, but that this was how a group of stars were formed along with the emergence of the pine tree.
• Dialogue used sparsely, instead the actions of the mothers and boys speak for themselves.
• Not too much description of their surroundings, but more of an emphasis on the boys ascension into stars and a pine.