Cherokee Legend Do you know the legend of the Cherokee Indian youth's rite of Passage? His father takes him into the forest, blindfolds him an leaves him alone.He is required to sit on a stump the whole night and not remove the blindfold until the rays of the morning sun shine through it.He cannot cry out for help to anyone. Once he survives the night, he is a MAN. He cannot tell the other boys of this experience, because each lad must come into manhood on his own. The boy is naturally terrified. He can hear all kinds of noises. Wild beasts must surely be all around him . Maybe even some human might do him harm. The wind blew the grass and earth, and shook his stump, but he sarcastically, never removing the blindfold. It would be the only way he could become a man! Finally, after a horrific night the sun appeared and he removed his blindfold. It was then that he discovered his father sitting on the stump next to him.He had been at watch the entire night, protecting his son from harm. We, too, are never alone. Even when we don't know it, Creator and our ancestors are watching over us, Sitting on the stump beside us.When trouble comes, all we have to do is reach out to them.If you liked this story, pass it on. If not, you took off your blindfold before dawn. Moral of the story: Just because you can't see the Creator or our ancestors, Doesn't mean they are not there. "We walk by faith, not by sight."
I don't know that they still do, but the Boy Scouts of America used this same ritual for scouts who were initiated into the Order of the Arrow.
Our 'creators' are fast diminishing it seems. They came and went by the scores. All hail Zeus and Baʿal. Still a little faith won't kill yah.
In Greek mythology, it was not Zeus who is touted as the creator of man, but the god chained by Zeus, Prometheus. Ba'al was a fertility and weather god but the name in some of the antiquities applied the name as theonymic to all gods. I'm not attempting a debate, but somebody has to keep the mythological gods straight. Obviously they did a very bad job of it.
A myth is as good as a smile It doesn't matter if a defunct god or creator is denigrated because they just don't matter. The question is which god now or then ever mattered.
All originally capitalized from Aries to Zeus but lost their followers and essentially their capital. So goes religion -so go Gods and gods.
Initially, @Kalvin Mitnic, this thread is not about whether or not you believe in the existence of God or Creationism. It concerns the Cherokee Legend and those things and customs which have derived from that legend. If you'll check out the religious board in this forum I believe you will see every well known member's name in there and whether they be Protestant, Catholic, Agnostic or Atheist you will see that through time, we learned that religion is not a debate but how each of us lives our lives. We've learned, for the most part, that there is room for all beliefs within our small but more than adequate community and we do it without attempting to " one up" or force our beliefs upon each other. It took time. Perhaps I am the one who dropped the ball and went off topic and for that I beg the starter of this thread, @Martin Alonzo's forgiveness. That said, I would suggest that if the existence of God is in question, you might start another thread in the religious area. Oh yeah, there are already a couple of them there....please do check them out.
Legends occur in many religions. This is a good topic to discuss since some are quite interesting,analogous or completely nonsensical. I believe many are possibly founded on excess pf peyote, magic mushrooms or heat exhaustion from wandering in the desert. Some make for good reading though. http://www.native-languages.org/legends-turtle.htm
How does the Cherokee Legend differ from the Hopi one...? I am assuming, of course, that THEY have a legend as well...I wouldn`t really know, as i`m not well versed in Native American folk lore.