Storms

Myth Interview Journal

There is an old lore from a Native American tribe called, Aleuts. This myth is called, The Origin of the Winds. It starts talking about a newly married couple who cannot have children. They have wanted to, but after trying and not succeeding they decide that a child is not for them. They began to have strange dreams of how their lives would be different if they had children. One night the wife had a dream where she was told to go have her husband cut down a tree and carve a doll from its trunk.

She woke up the next morning and told her husband to go cut down a certain tree and whittle its trunk into a doll. The man quickly began to make a miniature doll. They made it food and sat the meal in front of the doll. They woke up in the middle of the night and noticed the doll had eaten the food and was life-like. This is what they had hoped for; a child.

The doll ran off into the village and the couple could not find it. The doll found a hole in the sky's wall that was patched up by a piece of skin. The doll took out a knife and cut a hole in the sky. A large gust of wind began to blow through the hole. When he felt the wind had blown enough, he covered it back up with the skin. From then on, the doll that ran away, was in charge of the winds on the plains.

http://www.ilhawaii.net/~stony/lore91.html