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Native American Myths: How the Rainbow was Made

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Native American Myths: How the Rainbow was Made

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Native American Myths are the ones that have been a great part of our social and cultural life, the stories we grew up listening to and have been told for generations. Myths were originally made for telling how something is possible or came to be. On Saturday, before the noon sun set, a play was held at the local cherokee fire site. Local Native Americans sat around the warm fire leaving  an open space where the play would be presented. When the play was about to start, the narrator, Bira who is a well known storyteller, came out and sat down on the farthest right of the open scenery. He waited for all to get quite to introduced himself and the play, Rainbow: How the Rainbow came to be. The play then started. The first actor came out, he who was playing Nanabozho, a middle aged male. He stood right in front of the scenery, which was filled with white flowers of all types. Nanabozho started the play by showing  the flowers and the audience a bored expression on his face. The narrator then said. “He realized that all the flowers in his meadow were exactly the same off white color… So he decided to make a change…” Nanabozho gathered his paint and paintbrushes and walked toward the flowers. He sat down and arranged his paints beside him which were all the colors in the rainbow. The actor then proceeded to paint the off white flowers. Violets were dark blue, roses pink and red and pansies in every color..Slowly the children in the audience were so engaged that they got closer and closer to the actor just to see the detail going in to each flower. .

Nanabozho continued to paint his flowers all the colors of the rainbow with a smile on his face. But then on the side of the scenery entered two young male actors with blue bird wings attached to their arms. The narrator introduced them as Zippity-Zip and Zappity-Zing, two blue birds who were playing games around Nanabozho field. At a point in the play  the Bluebirds were playing near Nanabozho’s paint pots and “accidently” dipped the tip of their wings in the paint and both “flew” off into the flowers. . They then rentered, Zippity-Zip entered with a red streamer, Zappity-Zing with an orange and so on so forth until completing  a full spectrum of colors. Hanging the streamers gently on a string resembling a rainbow, Zippity-zip and zappity- zing exited the scenery. Nanabozho looked up from painting his flowers with delight, giving a gaze towards the colorful streamers. He excitingly announced, “We have made a rainbow!”. And the play ended. All the Natives got up from where they were sitting, whistling and clapping. The children ran up to the bluebirds and were trying on their wings pretending to fly and create their own rainbow. In the end, the play was a beautiful explanation on how flowers for their colors and most importantly how the rainbow was created.

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Music is a huge factor in today’s society and it has affected millions of people around the world. Well, Native Americans have had many forms of entertainment similar to this which was a big part of their culture as it brought together and united the Natives as an alternative to hunting and working all of the time. The main type of entertainment for the Natives include singing and dancing and there were many reasons for these musical festivals in their society, some for celebratory reasons and others for religious reasons. No matter what the reason was, this type of entertainment gave each Native tribe a sense of uniqueness since each tribe had a different way of celebrating, singing, and dancing. For example, the Arapaho, Pawnee, Onama, and Dakota all had different varieties of dancing but it always brought the people of the tribe together. Before tough times when there were no englishmen to kick out and take advantage of the Natives, singing and dancing was the main type of entertainment in every Native tribe.

Dances played a vital roles in religious rituals as well as being included in ceremonies of successful hunts and harvests. “Movements of the participants illustrated the purpose of the dance- expressing prayer, victory, thanks, mythology, and more.” As seen, dancing played a vital role in religious ceremonies, not only for celebratory reasons. The structure of the dance was very unique because it was mixed with human voices and drums. Today’s music is heavily based on drums and bass, but the Natives, as early as 16,000 years ago, included drums in their ceremonies giving the music a variety of sounds.“Commonly, dances were held in a large structure or in an open field around a fire.” Ceremonies, rituals, etc. were considered very important events so therefore most of these ceremonies were performed in front of a big audience which most of the time included a big field around a fire. Native music and dancing combined with Englishmen as soon Natives learned to read, perform, and compose European music. In conclusion dances and music was a big factor in Native festivals and culture.

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On this sorrowful morning, John Ridge, Major Ridge, and Elias Boudinot were all found dead. John Ridge was pulled from his bed and killed in front of his wife and kids. Major Ridge was shot dead while alone during the night. Elias Boudinot was alone when he was beaten to death . The tribe appears to have mixed feeling about the murders, some saying it was cruel and unnecessary, while others said that they should be dead and that they got what was coming to them. The people that are behind the killings have yet to be identified, but there motives seem crystal clear. On 29 of December of last year (1835) the treaty of new echota was passed without John Ridges consent, but was still passed and amended. The tribe believed that John Ridge signed the treaty and because of the tribe was outraged. Major Ridge and Elias Boudinot were large supporters of this move and because of this it is say they were killed over it. This treaty agreed to moving the tribe to a different piece of land the states offer 5,000,000$ from the U.S, and anyone that wanted to stay could if they would become a member of the states. The natives were not happy about this treaty, the Mississippi river was their home and they did not want to leave. But this is not the only assassination for months before this incident, in the month of July John Walker Jr, also a part of the “treaty party”, was killed for the same reasons.  The only people to witness the killing was the wife and children of John Ridge, they watched on as the killers pulled him from his bed and killed him. They have no formal statement for the press. The natives want to hold their ground but troops are ready to push them out in onto a new land