Blue Ridge Parkway First People Legends and Blue Ridge Discovery Center Event!

Color Ripples on The Blue Ridge  Original Painting has been sold

Prints on Paper or Canvas Available at   KENDALL KESSLER ART

This painting has been stumbling on Stumbleupon.com for a week now!  Check it out!

Snail Kite  Original 9"x11"  Mixed Media Drawing     $208

Prints on Paper or Canvas Available at    KENDALL KESSLER ART

I am finding more interesting myths and legends from the first people of the Blue Ridge Mountains.  I especially like the stories about their interpretations of nature!

Cherokee Animal Legends

The Cherokees believe the sun was a woman that lived in the east and the moon was her brother that lived in the west.

The Redbird was the daughter of the sun and eclipses were from a giant frog that lived in the sky and tried to swallow people. 

The lightening and the rainbow were the dress of the sons of thunder that lived in the west above the sky vault.

There are several stories about stars.  One is that a dog stole some corn meal and was whipped.  The dog ran across the sky to the north and sprayed the corn across the sky which created The Milky Way.

The buzzard is an important animal in their mythology.  He made the mountains and valleys with his wings and is considered to be a doctor!  That certainly is a different view of this bird than the one many people have today. 

Unfortunately many people  consider the vulture to be a pest and a lot of locales work hard to drive them off which is a big ecological mistake.

I found these legends on Cherokee Myths and Legends by Lowell Kirk online.

More tomorrow!

Life with The Bird and Word Man - Clyde Kessler

I wanted to be sure to announce the next great Blue Ridge Discovery Center Event coming up soon!

Where	Mexican Restaurant in Independence, Va map
Calendar	BRDC Web Calendar
Created by	ecbaird@gmail.com
Description	For the next gathering I thought we'd meet around 5:00, June 19th at the Mexican restaurant in Independence. Please join us! Contact Eva Floyd with questions ecbaird@gmail.com 276.579.2464 The Beak of the Finch by Jonathan Weiner On a desert island in the heart of the Galapagos archipelago, where Darwin received his first inklings of the theory of evolution, two scientists, Peter and Rosemary Grant, have spent twenty years proving that Darwin did not know the strength of his own theory. For among the finches of Daphne Major, natural selection is neither rare nor slow: it is taking place by the hour, and we can watch. In this dramatic story of groundbreaking scientific research, Jonathan Weiner follows these scientists as they watch Darwin's finches and come up with a new understanding of life itself. The Beak of the Finch is an elegantly written and compelling masterpiece of theory and explication in the tradition of Stephen Jay Gould.