Create Your Own Legend

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Legends are stories that are passed down over many generations that explain important events to a culture. Various legends are told about the origin of Devil's Tower. There are many Native American Groups who have many different legends about the Tower. One legend is below:

THE LEGEND

One day, an Indian tribe was camped beside a river and seven small girls were playing at a distance. The region had a large bear population and a bear began to chase the girls. They ran back toward their village, but the bear was about to catch them. The girls jumped upon a rock about three feet high and began to pray to the rock, "Rock, take pity on us; Rock, save us." The rock heard the pleas of the young girls and began to elongate itself upwards, pushing them higher and higher out of reach of the bear. The bear clawed and jumped at the sides of the rock, and broke its claws and fell to the ground. The bear continued to jump at the rock until the girls were pushed up into the sky, where they are to this day in a group of seven little stars (the Pleides). The marks of the bear claws are there yet. As one looks upon the tower and contemplates its uniqueness, it isn't hard to imagine this legend as a fact.

Here is a link to another telling of the Legend.

 

Now here is where you come in...

The Tower was clearly important to Native American tradition, as described in the various legends. One of the functions of legends is to preserve important places, people, events, and things. These people, places, events, and things can be real or fictional. More frequently, legends combine reality and fiction. Your assignment is to create a legend around a place, person, event, or thing in your life. But remember, legends combine reality and fiction and your legend should not simply be a description of reality.

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