Coyote And The Turtle's Back Analysis

Native American Myths have been used for hundreds of years to pass stories and traditions along to different generations. Throughout these stories, there are themes found. Whether these themes are well known or if you need to dig deep into the story to find it, they help convey the message being portrayed. The themes in the myths relate to now a day cultures and remind us how similar we are to the Native Americans. Coyote and the Buffalo, The World on the Turtle's Back, and Brother Bear are stories where themes can be found. The workings of the natural world, good and evil create a balanced world, and animals are worthy of admiration are a few themes explained throughout myths that how similar Native Americans are to nowaday people. The most common theme in “The World on the Turtle’s Back” is good vs. evil. This is represented by the twin brothers: the right-handed brother, and the left-handed brother. The right-handed twin always told the truth and did what he was told, while the left-handed twin lied and always did things backwards. The author writes, “The world the twins made was a balanced and orderly world, and this was good” (pg 42. line 137). In our world today we have people who …show more content…
In the natural world greed and selfishness is a common attitude found. In the story, Coyote is rewarded a cow for helping Buffalo Bull. This cow is able to feed him endless fat, but the Coyote becomes greedy and kills the cow for its meat. Bit by bit, the cow disappears from the Coyote’s grasp. When Coyote returned to request another cow, he came to find the first cow fully alive and with the others, but, “She refused to go with Coyote again, and Buffalo Bull would not give him another cow” (pg 52 line 91). This shows that when you are greedy and try to take more than you need, you can be left with absolutely nothing. Like the Coyote, our world is full of greed and