Week 10 Essay

The Use of Magic in Native American Fairy Tales

Every hero or villain in this section could do se sort of magic. Sometimes they were given this magic by nature and they considered it their responsibility to help others with it. Those people generally ended up being the heroes of the story. Others seemed not to be magical at all until they came to a point in the story where they would say "Let us turn into birds and fly away," and they they actually would turn into a bird. 

The magic seen in Grimm fairy tales or other European tales, is seen as unnatural, evil, and comes with horrible consequences. There are only witches, and the occasional wizard, who have sold their souls to the devil or have done some other dirty deed to obtain their powers. However, in Native American culture, nature was seen to be magical itself and almost at one with the gods. When the character in a european fairy tale needs to turn into a an eagle and escape, nothing happens and they run. When an indian needs to turn into a bird, they state it or ask someone how to do it, and then it happens.

The respect of nature and animals tends to show through in these stories. While many of the stories include the theme of conquering nature and animals or at least ruling over them, there is always a large amount of respect for the power of nature that is necessary to rule justly. The ease of magic in a lot of these stories suggests that magic itself is not a big deal. Every animal, every forest, every star has its own kind of magic. The hero always has access to this magic, kind of like a borrowing system, if they are in tune with nature and if they have honorable intentions.

"Magic Effects." Info.