snippet #2 from the anthology

Supposedly there was an old woman that lived in a house on the outskirts of town near a lovely pecan grove.
In her time, the time of her youth, she had been one of the most beautiful and sought-after girls around. So adorned, so smart, so pretty she was, yet so unhappy. Her parents had passed on before she was of marrying age, leaving her with the family homestead where she lived alone for many years.
One night at the very beginning of a thunderstorm, she sat near the fireplace. The lights had gone out the day before and she was almost down to the last couple of bottles of lamp oil. If worst came to worst, she knew she could always use some leftover bacon grease.
The windblown raindrops pelted against the kitchen window. She remembered her mother singing through the thunder to settle her nerves. Unlike her mother though, she loved thunderstorms and the lightning that followed. But since her parents had gone she had taken to singing in the rain. At the writing desk near the window, the young woman sat down and began to write. She wrote and wrote and wrote some more. She had no idea of what she was writing until she began to read it aloud.

….. And finally. I want a lover for me, someone who is kind, honest
and respectful. Who will love will all his heart and never leave me broken.

X X X

She signed her name, folded the paper and placed it in a flannel pouch.
It rained for nine days straight and on the last night of the storm a man appeared on her doorstep. She invited him in out of the downpour without question. He sat at her kitchen table, his boots dripping water clenching the cup of tea before him. When he spoke his voice was deep and melodic. She kept his cup warm and full.
He entranced her with his words. She enthralled him with her charm.
And so it began.

The townsfolk whispered as they passed them, at the church, at the jook joint, everywhere. No one knew why but they just knew something wasn’t quite right. Months passed as their love affair blossomed into a love that the young woman could not have imagined in her wildest dreams.
One cold spring night after dinner they sat next to the fire staring into the golden glow.
They exchanged kiss after kiss until the fire began to die down. The wind outside had just begun to howl and the young man offered to fetch more kindling before the weather worsened. She kissed him and retreated to bed.

He stepped off the porch and into the darkness of the pecan grove.

As the sun rose, the young woman found herself wrapped in blankets on an empty bed.
She gathered the covers in her hands and took in a deep breath inhaling the last remaining scent of her lover.

a very cool website

the moonlit road is a GREAT website. if you like folktales and ghost stories, check it out!

you can read as well as have a story read to you! i think that's awesome. storytelling is all about the storytellers and the delivery of the content.

storytellers spotlight

the internet is a strange thing...... looking for one thing always leads you to another.

this is my EX-boyfriend's mom :

Turtle Island Storyteller Yvonne Fox

My name is Yvonne Fox. My Indian name is White Buffalo Woman. It's Danaha Daga or it's Danaga, Dana Hadaga. My great grandfather was Little Sioux who was a scout with Custer during the battle of Little Big Horn and did have a medal from that time.

Grandma Philamine, Mom's mom, she had an Indian medicine and so she was a really good example. I never knew of her getting mad at people or saying things about people or anything. She was just a good person. We got some of her medicine and that's what she said. When you get some of the medicine they give you advice on how to live and not to be doing this and that and saying things and all that stuff so I think she was really a good influence on me. She lived around here all the time and she took her grandchildren with her all the time. Finally she had her great grandchildren and she just kept them with her. She just took care of them all the time, but she always always took care of us the old way. Not always but most of the time you know, she'd use the Indian way of taking care of like flu or diarrhea and different kind of things that you can use herbal stuff with. She did that all the time with us, she didn't. In the early days you couldn't jump in a car and run to the hospital or a clinic or anything. It just wasn't. So we learned, you know, that if a person knew how to do all this stuff with the medicine and stuff, that it was helpful.

Arikara elder, Yvonne Fox lives in the eastern part of the Fort Berthold Reservation, North Dakota. Her great grandfather, Little Sioux, was one of the scouts for Custer's Seventh Calvary at the Battle of the Little Big Horn. Her grandmother, Anna Dawson Wilde, was raised and went to school in Hampton, Virginia. After finishing school she came back to the reservation and became a field nurse. The tribe's sacred bundles tell of migration starting in Central America and traveling over large water and was the first recorded location along the Mississippi River. The migration continued west along the Missouri River where today village and lodge circle remains are still in existence. After the Garrison Dam flooded the bottomlands, the tribe was forced to move up to the prairie.

Yvonne holds a Bachelor's degree in elementary education and has been a teacher for more than 30 years. She was awarded "Teacher of the Year" by the National Indian School Board Association. She holds the position of Treasurer of the Sahnish Society. Sahnish is the name we call ourselves. She is also a member of the Ladies Auxiliary of the Local Legion Indian Post, a member of the Old Scout Society, and most importantly is a holder of a medicine bundle from her grandmother.

Yvonne belongs to a cultural society made up of teachers from local school, White Shield. They developed a curriculum for non-Indian teachers to teach Arikara history and culture. The type of storytelling Yvonne does depends on the audience. Her presentations are usually geared to children, but she has also presented to teachers and at education conventions. She tells stories about sacred rocks and places. One story is of the Medicine stone and how medicine people danced on it when it was heated up. Another story tells of the Grandfather rock that was carried all along the migration and they still have it today. At Fort Yates on the Standing Rock reservation, Standing Rock is an Arikara woman who turned to stone.

Yvonne is also a tribal culture specialist. She shares her knowledge of tribal dances and songs, along with the history of cultural artifacts, environmental issues, and tribal government. The Arikara have many tribal dances and songs, but ceremonies are kept within the tribe. Out of twelve sacred bundles they have seven remaining. The bundles contain a symbolic history of the Arikara tribe tracing the people back to the very beginning of their existence. The Arikara are also known for their burden baskets and pottery, which is in the process of being revived.

Yvonne E. Fox
1025 B 61 st Ave. NW
Garrison, ND 58540

Why the Sun Lives in the Sky

copied from text:

The sea has always lived in the low places such as valleys, but the sun has not always lived in the sky. The sun used to live on top of a mountain. The sun and the sea were good friends, Often the sun would come down from its mountain home to visit the sea, and they always enjoyed their times together. The sun would invite the sea to come visit its home at the mountaintop, but the sea never came.

After a time, the sun became both sad and a little angry. The sun called to the sea, "Why do you not come see me as I see you? True, you are much larger than I, but do you not think I would be a good host? I have enough food for you. I shall make a place big enough for you here on top of the mountain."

The sea replied, "My friend, I am afraid that I would drown you. I am wide and deep. I am your friend, and would rather always serve you than do something that might hurt you."

The sun insisted that the sea come and visit, and at last the sea consented. The sun watched as the sea swelled up around the mountain. Soon the sea was nearly covering the mountain. But the sun was too proud to admit that its home could not hold the sea, so it let the sea keep coming. Soon the sea had covered the sun's mountain and all the other mountains. The proud sun, fearing it would drown, had to leap into the sky where the sea could not come. The sea went back to its home, and the sun stays in the sky rather than go back to the mountaintop.


The End