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(2016
midterm assignment) Sample Student Midterm Answers 2016 (Index to # 1 samples) #1: Long Essay: learning, challenges, issues |
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Melissa Holesovsky
15
March 2016
A Matter of Origin
I recently watched a documentary on the Texas Rangers produced by the
History Channel and hosted by Kenny Rogers. In the documentary I learned that in
the Republic of Texas, there was a need for defense of settlers from the
Comanche Indians and that Stephen F. Austin appointed 10 men to take this role.
In this appointment, Stephen F. Austin became the first person to call these
defenders “rangers.” It occurred to me as I watched that this was an origin
story of the Texas Rangers as it examined this law enforcement entity and
explained their beginnings, making them matter to me. There are many stories of
origin like this one in American history, and the texts of early American
literature offer many of these, making them matter and offering a multicultural
perspective to the nation’s history.
In “Iroquois Creation Story 1” the origin of the Earth is explained.
Because Skywoman has fallen from the world above, the animals attempt to help
her survive below. Muskrat places a small bit of Earth on the turtle’s back and
this bit of Earth grows to become livable land. In this Iroquois origin story,
the Iroquois people use their beliefs and values to explain the world around
them and its origins. While this is a story of creation, it singles out the
origin of the Earth itself and offers insight into the value the Iroquois placed
on animals as well as the importance of having a harmonious and cooperative
relationship with the Earth. It also explains the origins of corn, beans and
squash from the body of Skywoman’s daughter, demonstrating the culture’s value
of these edible plants and their recognition of a woman’s body as life-giving
and sustaining.
“The Jicarilla Genesis” explains the origin of night and day through the
winning of a game as well as the origin of the division of land and sea through
the beaver’s efforts to conserve water for humans. It also includes the origin
of the buffalo’s bent horns as man used them to climb to the Earth above. Much
like the origin story of the Iroquois people, this Apache tale offers the
beginnings of the world as they know it according to their culture. While much
of the tale is different from that in “Iroquois Creation Story 1,” it still
constitutes an origin story as it works to explain aspects of the Earth;
however, similarity is seen in the emphasis on the importance of animals in both
cultures.
Not
of Native American origin, the book of
Genesis offers the Christian concept of creation in which God creates the
Heaven and the Earth and all things within, including man, in seven days. He
creates the Earth, divides night and day, creates land and sea, and He creates
all living creatures. This, of course, fits with the idea of a creation story
because God creates something, Heaven and Earth, from nothing and for
Christians, this is the foundation on which all other beliefs are based. While
Earth’s origins are explained in both the Iroquois and Apache stories,
Genesis offers an entirely different
account of the same happening. This intertextuality suggests that all cultures
have a need to explain the origins of the world around them in a way that
matters to them.
The
Seneca tribe member, Handsome Lake, offered his spoken-text “How the White Race
came to America…” as his explanation of the origin of white settlers in what was
a country of native peoples. While this isn’t an account of earthly origins, it
fills the need of explaining the presence of the colonists where they previously
did not exist. According to the Seneca, the white people were sent to a country
of “honest” and “virtuous” people by a “smiling man” in a gold castle and they
brought with them, in a bundle, all the vices of evil. This destructive evil is
viewed as what plagued and corrupted the native people. Throughout the text,
there is syncretism in the blending of Native American beliefs with European
settlement and some Christian principles as it works to explain how white
settlers came to discover the new world. This particular origin story doesn’t
just explain the presence of the settlers, but some of the devastating
experiences of the natives as well.
While
the Declaration of Independence does not offer the origins of geological spaces
or the beginnings and settlement of mankind, it does offer the origins of a
country. Because the colonists of the new nation felt they were unfairly being
ruled by King George, III of England, they chose to declare their independence
by listing their grievances against him and laying out how they believed this
new nation should be run. In doing so, this document presents the origin story
of the United States of America. Interestingly, there is some intertextuality in
respect to other origin stories as the Declaration refers to what “the Laws of
Nature and Nature’s God” allow for, and “that [men] are endowed by their Creator
with certain unalienable Rights.” Because there is no specific god or higher
being mentioned, this reference is to a god or creator who is above all without
discounting any specific belief and allowing for any culture’s views. Though the
Declaration is considerably different from the other origin stories I have
examined, it serves much the same purpose as it explains how the U.S. came into
being.
One of the most interesting aspects of origin stories is the flexibility
of what the term can actually mean and how much origin stories can have in
common. Before this class, I would not have seen the Texas Ranger origins
through the same lens as I see Genesis;
however, I have learned that while “origin” can mean the creation of Earth and
the beginnings of mankind, it can also mean the founding of a land or the
implementation of a new practice. Up to this point in the semester, I have found
cohesion in many of the class texts that support a common theme of creation and
origin stories in respect to both the dominant culture as well as in the
multicultural readings of the Native Americans. Knowing all that they can add to
the whole of Early American literature, these texts remain incredibly relevant
and work together to offer a complete, multicultural view of Early American
history.
