Crying Indian Commercial

The post about the Gatorade commercial reminded me of the Crying Indian Commercial that we talked about last class so I thought I would post it up here for your enjoyment.

Pima Stories of the Beginning of the World: The Story of the Flood

Pima Stories of the Beginning of the World: The Story of the Creation

Selections from Awawtam, Indian Nights, Being the Myths and Legends of the Primas of Arizona (1911)

Included in The Norton Anthology of American Literature, Fifth Edition

The Story of the Flood

Like Juhwertamahkai, Seeurhuh was very powerful and after doing many marvelous things, also made a man. The man was the most beautiful one made yet and to him he gave a bow and arrows. He told the man to find any young girl in the villages that would suit him and should her parents consent, to marry her. As the man sought to find wives he found agreeable, Seeurhuh seeing what would happen then began collecting gum of the greasewood tree to make a great vessel which could be closed up and keep back water. It was after his brothers questioned his actions that Seeurhuh announced a flood was approaching. He told them he would escape using the vessel he was crafting from the gum.

A doctor that lived down toward sunset had a beautiful daughter. One day after finding her crying she confessed to be afraid of the young man looking for wives. He told her she ought not to be afraid, for there is happiness for a woman in marriage and the mothering of children. The young girl kept crying, fearing the young man and finally out of pity for her fear, her father sent her to get him little tuffs of the finest thorns on the top of the white cactus, and bring them to him. Once she had them, taking a hair from her head he wound about one end of it and told her if she wore it it would protect her. He told her when the man came to make him broth of corn for dinner but warned her that if the young man ate all the broth, their plan would fail. But if he managed to leave any remaining, she was to eat it and they would succeed. Shortly before the man arrived her father told her this, “if the young man is wounded by the thorns you wear, in that moment he will become a woman and a mother and you will become a man.”

By daybreak the child was crying and the young man that had been, but who is now a woman and a mother, made a walkote, or cradle for the baby and took the trail back home. The young man-woman came back and by the time of his return Seeurhuh had finished the vessel and placed therein seeds and everything that is in the world. The man-woman placed the child in some brush and left it there, entering the vessel without it. Seeurhuh immediately knew it was the man he had given life to. He lamented foreseeing the shame brought upon his creation and asked the man to bring him the child. The young man-woman found the child crying, its tears littering the ground and upon bending to pick the child up was turned into a sand-snipe, and the baby turned into a little teetersnipe.

Water began gushing from beneath each tree and mountain. Seeing this, the people ran to Juhwertamahkai who, using his staff, made a hole in the earth and let all those through that had come to him. The others were left to drown. The flood reached higher until it reached the woodpecker’s tail, where you can still see the marks to this day. And the little birds sang, for they had the power to make the water go down by singing and as they sang the waters gradually receded. When the land began to appear Juhwertamahkai and Toehahvs got out while Seeurhuh had to waited for more land to appear to safely exit the vessel. Juhwertamahkai went south, Toehahvs went west, and Seeurhuh went north. They had passed eachother unseen, but seeing the tracks of one another doubled back. This happened four times before they finally met. And when they met, Seeurhuh greeted them as his younger brothers and after much debate, though Juhwertamahai knew he himself came first, gave into Seeurhuh’s insistence that he was the eldest.

They then set about finding the “navel of the earth,” sending the little birds each in a different direction to search for it until on the fourth try it was discovered it sat where they had been all along. Seeurhuh rubbed his breast, and from it, created ants that threw up hills and dried the earth. But the water was still running in the valleys and so he plucked two hairs from his head, creating snakes to push the waters north and south.

Next, they attempted to create more people from the damp clay of the earth. Juhwertamahkai did not make good ones, as he did not want to create anything better than those he had saved and buried in the earth, and so he made the poorest of all that Seeurhuh threw away. He was so angered by this that he began sinking into the ground and even though Seeurhuh held on as tightly as he could he slipped through his hands and all that was left of earth of Juhwertamahkai was the waste and excretion of his skin. That is how death and sickness came to be among us. Seeurhuh cried and shook with anger, waving his arms about and scattering disease over the land until he washed himself off in a pool, the impurities remaining in the water the source of malaria and diseases of dampness.

Seeurhuh and Toehavs built a house for their dolls and carefully watched their creatures when the Apache spoke first. To this Seeurhuh said, “I never meant to have those Apaches talk first, I would rather have had the Awawtan, the Good People, speak first.” And all the different people that they had made talked, one after the other and the Awawtan spoke last. Eventually the people began to go their separate ways, the Apaches traveling into the mountains, some going west to the Rio Colorado. And those who built vahahkkee, or houses of adobe, lived in the valley of the Gila, between the mountains that are there now.

• How is this story of creation, or rebirth, similar to those of other cultures and religions?
• Did Juhwetamahkai leaving the earth and being the reason for death/disease surprise you at all? Why/why not?
• What do you think it means when Seeurhuh says, “I never meant to have those Apaches talk first.” Do you think it sheds him in a negative light or is meant to be humorous in the way of sayings like “If you want to make God laugh tell him your plans?” Does this hold any significance in terms of his character or the story? Does it matter?

Tribal Trending

For those who don’t know much about Erin Wasson, the model featured on my post, she is an American model known for her bohemian/tribal street wear and I think she embodies what the colonists would have feared: women’s stereotypical association and fascination with Nature. Therefore, it is a possibility they would be assumed to be attracted to Native Americans because they exemplify freedom.