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I explored Egyptian mythology, some Congolese mythology, and some Eskimo legends. I like exploring stories that are loosely related to different aspects of my family's heritage. We are both of African and Native American decent, though we don't know which country in Africa we come from (thanks, slavery) and we are Chickasaw, not any Eskimo tribe. I am very familiar with Greek and Roman mythology, so I wanted to branch out and try to read stories that I am less familiar with. 

In the Egyptian Mythology section, I read "The Secret Name of Ra" It is about Isis, an enchantress on Earth who wished to join the gods and Ra, the king of the gods. Ra's secret name is the source of his power, which I find interesting. I don't know if this is the origin of the idea that there is power in a name, but it's a literary theme that we see all over the world in lots of stories. Rumplestiltskin, is one example. Voldemort from Harry Potter is an even more recent and popular example. Anyhow, Isis creates an invisible, venomous snake which bites Ra and brings him to the brink of death. She tells him that she needs his secret name to heal him, and once she has it, actually follows through and heals him. I thought that it was interesting that no negative epitaphs are attached to Isis in the story. She is both the protagonist and the antagonist, and when she said she wanted to "share power with Ra," she meant it. She could have let him die just as easily, but I think that this story shows that even trickery and ambition don't have to be considered "bad" or "evil." 

"Isis"
Source: Flickr

"The Vanishing Wife" is a Congolese folktale. Like a lot of African folktales, it has several tropes in one story, many of which are understated. For example, there is the trope of a rivalrous relationship between two brothers. Beyond this, the literary theme of a lucky/wealth man and an unlucky/poor man. There is a theme which is often seen in African literature (and some Western mythology involving gods) where a man has a single instruction to follow, lest all his fortune leave him. In this story, a man who is poor and unloved (unlike his rich, married, successful brother) dreams of a woman who tells him to find a magic canoe, go fishing, and return so that she may cook for him. Her only instruction was to remove the heads of the fish, because she doesn't want to look at them. He does as he is bidden, then returns home to find a sprawling house where his humble hut once was, complete with a wife and servants. One day he fails to take the heads off of the fish, and everything he has vanishes, leaving him with no wife and only a hut. This story reminds me of the story of Lot's wife in Bible, who turned to salt because she looked back at the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, or Orpheus, who sang is way into the Underworld only to lose everything by looking back to makes sure his wife was following him. All of these stories have a man who couldn't follow instructions, and lost a wife because of it.

"African Man and Hut"
Source: Wikimedia Commons

The final story the I read was "The Coming of Men", and Eskimo folktale. It's sort of a creation myth, kept by oral tradition. The Earth fell from the sky, there was no sun, and men crawled out of the Earth as babies. The story admits that we don't know when men and women found each other, but women sewed cloths for the babies. Then men stamped the ground and cried out until dogs ran out from the sand. With dogs to help them and clothes to keep them warm, the number of people continued to grow. A great flood killed many of them, but eventually they asked for the sun and for the knowledge of how to die.  They got both, because when men die, they become a light in thy sky. Oral tradition is a strange thing. It's impossible to perfectly tell a story orally without slight changes getting made, for example, the game "telephone." But the most important parts are always the same. I always wonder if certain explanations are left out on purpose or simply omitted by time. But I liked how this story served as both an explanation for the stars and for death.

"Eskimo and Sled Dogs"
Source: pxhere