This is my extra reading diary. It’s from the Eskimo Folk Tales unit.
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| A high-content wolfdog. |
I loved this story for a couple of reasons.
The first reason – the giant dog reminds me of White Fang,
the titular character in the book by Jack London. While White Fang was the biggest dog (well,
wolfdog hybrid), he was definitely the fiercest. Part of this was due to his time in a dog
fighting ring when he was owned by a man named Beauty Smith.
The scene where Giant Dog kills three dogs reminds me of the
scene in White Fang where, after
being rescued from Beauty by Weedon Scott and White Fang’s hanging out with
Weedon back down in Cali, White Fang is set upon by a pack of town dogs. White Fang knew that Weedon didn’t want him
fighting other dogs, so he just tried to outrun them; the town dogs would nip
and bite at him as he followed Weedon’s carriage.
Well, one day, Weedon stops the carriage after hearing some
guys at the saloon encouraging the dogs to attack White Fang. Weedon climbs out of the carriage and tells
White Fang to “eat ‘em up.”
White Fang doesn’t have to be told twice.
He kills two dogs in quick succession (silently, without
growling or snarling) and chases a third one into a field and kills it there.
The second reason I love this story is the last line: “And
that is all I know about the Giant Dog.”
My last folklore class we talked about how Native American stories were
just being voice recorded over at Sam Noble – when someone noticed that they
were missing out on a speaker’s hand gestures.
The hand gestures were a version of Plains sign language –
which was used when different tribes that didn’t share a language encountered
each other on, well, the Plains. So now,
both audio and visual taping is used when Natives come in to share stories.
I watched and listened a lot of the stories ended like this –
with “this is all I know” or “and that is the end.”
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