Tag Archives: myth

The Polish Eagle

Nationality: Polish
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Performance Date: 4/26/17
Primary Language: English
Language: Polish, Mandarin

Informant IT is a sophomore studying Computer Science and Business Administration at the University of Southern California. She is of Polish descent and has lived in many parts of the world. She is fluent in several languages including Polish, English, and Mandarin, and she considers herself very good at learning languages. In this piece, she tells the interviewer (AK), about a Polish myth concerning the founding of Poland.

IT: So, this is the story of the Polish Eagle, and how Poland is set to be founded. So the three brothers Lef, Czech, and Bruce were living in small villages. But it came to the point where the villages were just too small to live comfortably. So they set out with some troops and they started going through mountains and rivers and they couldn’t find anyone. And it had gotten to the point where they got to the top of a mountain top and they decided to go 3 separate ways. Lef went straight ahead, Czech went left, and Bruce went right. And Lef went down the mountain and went over another valley, and at the top of another mountain, he saw an eagle flying in the sunset and the light apparently fell very beautifully. Uhh on the head of the crown of the eagle head. That’s why it has a crown on its head on the Polish flag. And he decided that this is where they would settle and they brought all the people there, and they called themselves the Polonians. Which means “The people of the fields”. Yeah, that’s the story of the Polish Eagle and how Poland was founded.

AK: So would you say this is more of a legend, or is it almost accepted as fact of how Poland was created?

IT:  I don’t know if I would say it’s accepted as fact, but every single Polish person knows this story, like there’s movies and games and comics about this.

AK: But it’s just been passed down through generations?

IT: Yeah, yeah and they had flown the flag with the eagle on it and the eagle with the crown on its head when they had founded it way back then. And it’s definitely accepted by everyone now.

I really enjoyed listening to this Polish myth about its creation. It definitely invoked a sense of nationalism and pride in my informant and she even mentioned that every Polish person has definitely heard this story. This is one of the aspects of it that makes it into a myth. It has a sacred truth value since everyone knows the story and has accepted it. I knew just about nothing about Polish culture, so it was really interesting to learn a bit through this piece.

Polybius

Nationality: American
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: Seattle, Washington
Performance Date: 4/12/16
Primary Language: English

Polybius is an urban legend videogame–meaning a video game that is only rumored to have existed.

 

What’s Polybius?

BA: Polybius is a video game, supposedly made by SEGA, that caused the kids to play it to have seizures. They say there’s only been one Polybius cabinet–this was the 80s, when games were in cabinets in arcades, like Pac Man and Asteroids and stuff…and this cabinet was in Portland.

Why was there only one cabinet?

BA: There was only one cabinet, because that’s how they tested the game before release. It was a big game by a big company, and it used new graphics technology, so they just secretly tested it under a fake name…if the game passed testing, it wouldn’t be called “Polybius”. But… the kids who played it got addicted to it and had seizures. People reported seeing men in suits watching them play, and some say it was the United States government watching to see the effect of the game, to somehow use it as a weapon. Anyway, they scrapped the game and hid it from the records once the kids had seizures, so they couldn’t get any bad press, so nobody’s heard of it since.

 

The mystery of Polybius originated on the internet in discussion boards in 1998. It’s since snowballed to a huge essential question: “Is Polybius real or fake?”. Some claim that it is a fabricated story based on the overwhelmingly negative reception of the early testing stages of Tempest, while others claim to have been part of the developer team responsible for the game.

There are some slight references to Polybius in popular culture, such as a background joke in The Simpsons and the plot of a long-cancelled G4 series, Blister

The Crows and the Serpent

Nationality: Indian-American
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: 4/27/16
Primary Language: English

Piece:

The Crows and the Serpent

This story is from the Panchatantra tales. In indian culture when the kids are going to bed, parents will read out of this book. All of the stories have morals to them. In that story pretty much what happens is there are a bunch of crows living in a tree. One day a family of snakes moves under the tree. So then obviously the crow family is really mad about that, because snakes eat crows. So the next day crow parents go out in the morning to search for food for their kids. They come back later and all their babies are gone–because the snakes ate them. So then they have more kids and decide to come up with a way for the snakes to not attack them. So then the mom decides to stay in the nest when while the dad searches for food–but because she’s alone, the snakes attack her and eat all their babies again. So they have to come up with a new plan to save their next babies. So they call their friends over who are foxes. They tell the foxes about how the snakes keep eating their babies. The fox tells them to use their brain. He says that all the royal families bathe really early in the morning, and leave their jewelry on plates. So he tells the crows to steal one of the necklaces and drop it into the snakes’ home. So the crows wake up really early the next day, before the snakes are awake, and steal a necklace from one of the royal families. Some guards are chasing them as they fly away, and then they drop the necklace into the snake hole. The guards then have to kill the snakes to get the jewelry out of the whole, which they do, and the crows stop having their babies eaten.

This moral of this story is to use intelligence over physical strength.

Informant & Context:

My informant for this story is an Indian-American student at the University of Southern California who grew up in Seattle, Washington. She grew up in a fairly culturally traditional Indian household. This story comes from a set of stories that many Indian parents read to their children.

Thoughts:

The thing that stands out to me the most about this story is that the crows are the heroes. In many stories in western culture, crows are often the antagonists—the same can be said for foxes.

The story has a very concise message: Use intelligence to solve your problems instead of strength.

How the Kiwi Lost It’s Wings

Nationality: New Zealand
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: 4/27/16
Primary Language: English

Piece:

How the Kiwi Lost It’s Wings

One day Tanemahuta, the god of the forest, rounds up all of the birds and says that there are too many bugs on the floor of the forest eating the trees. If one of the birds doesn’t go down to eat all of the bugs, the trees will all be killed and the birds will have nowhere to build their nests. First he asks the Tui, but the Tui says that he’s too afraid of the dark on the forest floor. So Tanemahuta brands him as a coward with a white scarf (white tuft) around his neck. Then he asks Pukeko “will you come down to the forest floor.” And Pukeko says “no the mud is too rough and it will hurt my feet.” So Tanemahuta curses Pukeko so that he now lives in swamps. Then he asks Pipiwharauroa, who says, “no I can’t, I’m building a nest.” And then he curses Pipiwharauroa so that he can never build a nest again. Then he asks the kiwi. And Kiwi knows that somebody has to do it, so he will. So then he grows thick legs, and a long beak to put in the mud and to get rid of his beautiful feathers for ugly brown ones. And then Tanemahuta rewards the kiwi by making him the most beloved bird in the world.

 

Informant & Context:

My informant for this piece is a USC student from New Zealand who lived in Auckland for 18 years. The story she is telling is a Maui origin story about how the Kiwi lost its wings and became the bird of New Zealand. A more complete version of the story can be found here: http://www.kiwinewz.com/html/losewing.htm

 

Thoughts:

This is a very interesting story about an act of selflessness. It is interesting to me, not only because I do not have anything similar to say about the bald eagle and how it became the symbol of America, but also because the story originates from the aboriginal Maui people of New Zealand. My informant is a white New Zealander, who is not part of that group, however she called this a traditional New Zealand story—implying that all of New Zealand culture is shared.

Cherokee Myth of Fire

Nationality: American
Age: 51
Occupation: Social Worker
Residence: Tulsa, OK
Performance Date: March 16th, 2016
Primary Language: English

The informant for this piece is my aunt, who worked for the Cherokee Government for several years and is still heavily involved in the organization. She grew up in Tulsa, OK, but has also lived extensively in Tahlequah, OK.

In this piece, my aunt discusses the Cherokee myth of where fire came from. The story also explains why certain animals look the way they do.

AJ: Growing up, especially in your grandmother’s day, we didn’t really share stories from the old days. A lot of your ancestors saw those stories as going against the word of God.

Me: Because they had converted to Christianity.

AJ: Right, so those stories didn’t get passed around as much. I remember a couple. One of them was a story on how fire was made.

Me: Can you tell it to me?

AJ: Yes. I looked it up to make sure I was remembering correctly. Okay, so in the beginning there was no fire and the world was dark and cold. Then, the Thunders sent lightning and put fire in the bottom of a sycamore tree. This tree was located on an island in the middle of water, and the animals could not get to it, so they held a council to decide what to do. The White Raven offered to go, but when he landed on the sycamore tree, the heat of the fire scorched his feathers black so he returned without fire… so that’s how ravens became black, too.

Me: Interesting.

AJ: Okay… so the raven came back without fire. Next, the screech owl went, but when he looked down into the tree, a burst of hot air shot up and burned his eyes, which are red to this day. The hoot and horned owls went next, but the smoke blinded them and the ashes caused white rings to form around their eyes.

Me: So this is sort of the story of how we got fire and how animals came to look the way they did.

AJ: Yes! Isn’t it creative?

Me: Very.

AJ: The black racer and the black snake both tried but where both burned black for their efforts. Finally, the little water spider spun a tusti bowl on her back, and crossed the water to the island, and put one coal in her bowl and brought fire back to the animals. Isn’t that cool?

Me: Yeah. You’re right, it was very inventive. So, did Mimi tell you that?

AJ: Yes. I think I asked her about a story one time and that was one of the few she knew. Like I said, she didn’t learn many growing up, but I guess a few slipped out every now and then. We kind of hold on to them tightly since we have so little.

I think the major reason my aunt loves this story is the creativity involved in it. The way the story explains why some animals are the color that they are did not have to be included, but she appreciates that it was. I also think she likes it because it’s part of our heritage, and it makes her feel connected to her past that she tells this story. She might not feel as if she is as connected as she could be due to what she mentioned about how the stories were not passed down at one point, so knowing this story is extremely important to her. Personally, I think the story is very creative and it makes me proud to think that my ancestors were really great at telling stories, because that exactly what I want to do in my life.

Here is a website that also tells the myth: http://www.firstpeople.us/FP-Html-Legends/TheFirstFire-Cherokee.html