Tuesday, February 24, 2009
Little Burnt Face
This is a Native American tale from the Micmac tribe. This tale has many components of a catskin tale as well as a few from a Cinderella tale. Like the Cinderella tales, the sisters were mean to the girl and in this case burned her so that she was no longer pretty. They also tried to keep her from the Great Chief. As in the Catskin tales, she wore a birch suit and when she completed the challenge (seeing the Great Chief) the scars vanished and she had nice clothes. This story had typical features that recurred in many stories such as a challenge to face.
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Its Native-Americanness makes it more akin to the Donkeyskin than traditional Cinderella stories. The Native Americans, as a culture in general, I would assume to be more realistic, and use their tales to convey the societal and cultural anxieties, rather than to draw on magic and create a fantasy world.
ReplyDeleteEven though Native Americans created magic-like rituals, they did not treat them as if they were magic, but instead treated them as fi they were part of their activities of daily life, and therefore, more realistic.
It surprises me though that the Native Americans, in their tale "Little Burnt Face," even bothered placing any emphasis on beauty-- how the girl was punished by being made "not pretty." It just surprises me because I did not expect the Native Americans to base anything superficial, at all.
Where we may view the tale as a fairytale, functionally it may have served much the same way other "magic-like rituals" served. Their tales usually have purposeful morals (not just for children, as we see in Perrault). Here we can see a clear resolution and moral for the social structures of teasing and beauty, and though the tale is magical, its basis is in real etiquette.
ReplyDeleteI definitely think the cultural aspect of "Little Burnt Face" give this fairytale a whole new dimension. I agree that it is more realistic - as it should be considering the roots of all Native American culture is in nature. Historians like Darnton would probably have really good insights into the value the Native American culture adds to this fairy tale in relation to other Cinderella stories.
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