Happy Monday friends! I hope you packed light and got some party clothes, cause this Monday we are back in the US and visiting some native American tribes, and listening to their beautiful and wonderful tales!
So today we are in Tennessee and we will explore:
THE WAMPUS CAT
S.E. Schlosser is the author of the Spooky Series
by Globe Pequot Press, as well as the Ghost Stories deck by Random
House. A graduate of both Houghton College and the Institute
of Children's Literature, Sandy received her MLS from Rutgers
University while working as a full-time music teacher and a freelance
author. Schlosser is the writer of an award-winning,
internationally-known web site called American Folklore
that features re-telling of folktales
from each state. This site was created as part of a graduate study at
Rutgers the State University of New Jersey in October 1997 and is used
daily by teachers throughout the world in lesson plans for students of
all levels. Stories from the site have also been used in college text
books and in Masters level programs.
Tale:
They say that the Wampus cat used to be a beautiful Indian woman. The men of her tribe were always going on hunting trips, but the women had to stay home. The Indian woman secretly followed her husband one day when he went hunting with the other men. She hid herself behind a rock, clutching the hide of a mountain cat around her, and spied on the men as they sat around their campfires telling sacred stories and doing magic.
According to the laws of the tribe, it was absolutely forbidden for women to hear the sacred stories and see the tribe's magic. So when the Indian woman was discovered, the medicine man punished her by binding her into the mountain cat skin she wore and then transforming her into a terrible monster - half woman and half mountain cat. Ever after she was doomed to roam the hills, howling desolately because she desires to return to her normal body.
A man was hunting one night with his dogs when they both whimpered and ran off the path. At that moment, the woods were overpowered with a horrible smell like that of a wet animal that had fallen into a bog after it messed with a skunk. Then something howled on the path behind him and the man whirled around, dropping his rifle. His heart pounding with fear, the man found himself staring into the big, glowing yellow eyes of the Wampus Cat. The creature had huge fangs dripping with salvia. It looked kind of like a mountain lion, but it was walking upright like a man. Then it howled, and the man's skin nearly turned inside out in horror.
With a scream of terror, the man leapt backwards and ran as fast as he could through the woods, the Wampus Cat on his heels. He fled to the home of a friend who lived nearby, and burst through the front door only a breath ahead of the creature. His friend slammed the door in the face of the Wampus Cat. Instantly, it started shuddering under the weight of the attacking monster. The man's friend grabbed his Bible and started reading aloud from the Psalms. Upon hearing the holy words, the Wampus Cat howled in frustration and then slowly abandoned its attack and went back into the woods.
The man spent the rest of the night at his friend's place. When he went home at daybreak, he found his dogs huddled in the barn, shaken but still alive. The man never hunted after dark again.
I really do enjoy folklore so so so much! I think it's the most wonderful thing that our ancestors have left us. Can you imagine? I mean we only think of it as old songs or stories from the old times, when there were no TV, or books or movies, but please guys, keep in mind, that folklore is SO much more!
Folklore is the way our ancestors lived, it's what they believed in, it's what they used to amuse themselves with, tell to their kids to protect them, they believed in it with all their hearts! I am so happy that so much of various folklore has survived until our day and we can now simply Google it and read out it.
Native American folklore is one of the most interesting folklore for me (apart from Lithuanian, I literally cannot wait foe us to travel to Lithuania! ). American folklore is rich with educational tales, with tales that seems to be meant for children but really it's not. Like this one, in my opinion.
You know it tells a story of how you should never try to capture of hunt a wild animal, but the way I see it the wild animal here is - a woman! This tale simple says that a woman is wild cat that can never be tamped, hunted, pinned down, a woman like a wampus cat has a wild spirit that needs to be respected and loved!
We have so much to learn from our ancestors!
They say that the Wampus cat used to be a beautiful Indian woman. The men of her tribe were always going on hunting trips, but the women had to stay home. The Indian woman secretly followed her husband one day when he went hunting with the other men. She hid herself behind a rock, clutching the hide of a mountain cat around her, and spied on the men as they sat around their campfires telling sacred stories and doing magic.
According to the laws of the tribe, it was absolutely forbidden for women to hear the sacred stories and see the tribe's magic. So when the Indian woman was discovered, the medicine man punished her by binding her into the mountain cat skin she wore and then transforming her into a terrible monster - half woman and half mountain cat. Ever after she was doomed to roam the hills, howling desolately because she desires to return to her normal body.
A man was hunting one night with his dogs when they both whimpered and ran off the path. At that moment, the woods were overpowered with a horrible smell like that of a wet animal that had fallen into a bog after it messed with a skunk. Then something howled on the path behind him and the man whirled around, dropping his rifle. His heart pounding with fear, the man found himself staring into the big, glowing yellow eyes of the Wampus Cat. The creature had huge fangs dripping with salvia. It looked kind of like a mountain lion, but it was walking upright like a man. Then it howled, and the man's skin nearly turned inside out in horror.
With a scream of terror, the man leapt backwards and ran as fast as he could through the woods, the Wampus Cat on his heels. He fled to the home of a friend who lived nearby, and burst through the front door only a breath ahead of the creature. His friend slammed the door in the face of the Wampus Cat. Instantly, it started shuddering under the weight of the attacking monster. The man's friend grabbed his Bible and started reading aloud from the Psalms. Upon hearing the holy words, the Wampus Cat howled in frustration and then slowly abandoned its attack and went back into the woods.
The man spent the rest of the night at his friend's place. When he went home at daybreak, he found his dogs huddled in the barn, shaken but still alive. The man never hunted after dark again.
Thoughts:
Folklore is the way our ancestors lived, it's what they believed in, it's what they used to amuse themselves with, tell to their kids to protect them, they believed in it with all their hearts! I am so happy that so much of various folklore has survived until our day and we can now simply Google it and read out it.
Native American folklore is one of the most interesting folklore for me (apart from Lithuanian, I literally cannot wait foe us to travel to Lithuania! ). American folklore is rich with educational tales, with tales that seems to be meant for children but really it's not. Like this one, in my opinion.
You know it tells a story of how you should never try to capture of hunt a wild animal, but the way I see it the wild animal here is - a woman! This tale simple says that a woman is wild cat that can never be tamped, hunted, pinned down, a woman like a wampus cat has a wild spirit that needs to be respected and loved!
We have so much to learn from our ancestors!
See you next Monday!
