Ta-Na-E-Ka Analysis

Judith Ortiz Cofer. “Don’t Call Me A Hot Tamale.” Writing First With Readings. 5th edition. Eds. Laurie G. kirszener and Stephen R. Mandell. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin, 2012. 664-666.

These Grandfathers presented Black Elk with gifts to help him on his journey. A wooden cup, a bow and arrows, a white wing of cleansing, an herb to heal, a sacred pipe a flowering stick and the power to make live and to destroy were the tools that were given to him. Then, the Grandfathers showed Black Elk what was to become of his people. He was shown a holy tree which once had been flowering and was now gone. The people he was supposed to lead were thin and starving, and Black Elk cried as he saw the fate of his people.

As Mary’s story unravels, she continues to suffer long hours of work, starvation, and separation from her family. She reads her holy bible and is constantly reminding herself that God is with her and will see her through these trials. Her spirits are lifted her master agrees to sell Mary to her husband, and her mistress begins the journey with her, but before long the mistress decides not to go any further and they turn back. Not long after, she starts to loose hope that she will ever be reunited with her family. She becomes discouraged, and her spirit

She made her into the village and through the square to set up her market stall of curiosities, her display is a large array of fruit or flowers in the forest, sometimes she would find owl pellets and would sometimes dissect them to see what the owls have been eating. Often, she would display books that she has written one book was titled ‘The Modern Medicines’. One of the villagers picked it up and attempted to read it and her face was puzzled, she remembered them looking at her and saying to her ‘What’s all these here squiggles on this pa’er Mary?’ She placed it down and walked to the vegetable stall.

It seems that when Mary Anne takes off her gold and her beads, her innocence is lost. One morning, she goes missing. When her boyfriend finds her in the forest, she had transformed back into a primal state of being. Mary Anne is no longer what society wants her to be, she becomes her central and natural self. Though she is in fact wearing jewelry again, she is wearing a necklace made of human tongues.

As she adventures into the deep Everglades with only a few supplies, she comes across a deer, and she wondered why it was so spooked. “Hardly had she spoken than she was struck by a blast of hot air, more searing than the one she had felt in the boat.’ It smelled of burning grass”(27). Then she sees fire through all the tall and short trees and runs to shore when she realizes her boat and then runs straight to it. As she gets on the ship, she cannot paddle fast enough, and she says “The fire is coming too fast”(27). So she finds a nearby cave and figures it is her only hope. As Billie is running from the fire, she assumes the fire was the serpent because “They spat black smoke as the many-tongued beast came rushing toward Billie”(27) just like if the fires black smoke was the tongue of the serpent. While she was hiding from the serpent, she explored the cave and found fascinating artifacts about the Calusa tribe. The Calusa tribe are the ancestors of the Seminole tribe and there a Seminole legend. The Calusa tribe are called the underground people because they built ramps that go underground and she identified how they lived.When Billie was in the cave, she found a cause pot that inspired her to start believing in her tribe's legend. So far billies evaluation has changed because she has become very intrigued in her tribe's

Mary Rowlandson was held captive by the Wampanoag peoples. In this narrative she gives details on what happened to her while she was a prisoner for weeks. Mary was captured along with her three children, two of which she was separated from and the other one died in Mary’s arms on the ninth day. She then went and saw her ten year old, who, upon seeing her mother, broke down in tears resulting in them not being able to have much further contact. Her captors made her march along for miles until they reach a river that they crossed on canoes. Mary stays there a while sewing and knitting for some of the Native peoples living there. She then is given a knife in which she promptly returns to her master, who lets her go see her son. She gets lost in

She hated her stepfather so much that she was barely home and always got in arguments with her mother, yelling at her for marrying such a bad man. Mary and her mother did not get along after her mom remarried so Mary drank and began to live like a hobo. There was nothing for the men to do back than besides drink so she couldn't really blame her mother for picking a man like that because that is how they all were. They just drank and drove around wasted. Mary was one of six kids, sister Kathie, brother Robert, sister Barbara (who she got along the best with), sister Sandra and then an adopted little brother. The adopted brother was very spoiled. Mary's mother had to find a job to help support the kids and when she was gone at work nobody was left to take care of them so their grandparents took care of them. Her grandma was born Louise Flood and her grandpa was Brave Bird. Her grandpa was killed when the horses which were pulling his wagon were startled by a lighting storm. The horses freaked out and caused the wagon to tip. Brave Bird got thrown out of the wagon and got tangled in the reins. The horses dragged him through the bush, over rocks, and over barbed-wire fence. When people found him he was dead. Her grandma ended up remarrying a man named Noble Moore. Noble Moore had a son named Bill who ended up marrying Mary's mom. Mary's mom had grown up and no longer was married to the

During their “removes,” Mary becomes too weak to walk any longer, and the Indians, “like inhuman creatures, laugh and rejoice to see it.”They do nothing to provide for her comfort during their long journeys through the rough landscape. Her only refuge is to take comfort in her prayer and hope that God will help her through these hard times. After the first several days, Mary develops a dependency upon the Indians, and begins to get used to their means of living.

On February 10, 1676 a dreadful event hit the settlers of Lancaster. The Narragansett Indians attacked and killed countless people and destroyed several houses. One of the men they killed begged for his life and even offered them money. The Indians didn’t pay any attention to him and hit him on the head with a hatchet, then proceeded to strip him of his clothes. Throughout this account Mary Rowlandson show an amazing trust and reliance in God.

Mary Anne, upon returning from a three week mission with the Greenies, is found by Fossie singing in the Greenies’ hootch. This Mary Anne, however, was different from the Mary Anne he had known and fallen in love with. She had changed. Rat, describing the story, said, “There was no emotion in her stare, no sense of the person behind it. But the grotesque part, he said, was her jewelry. At the girl’s throat was a necklace of human tongues”(105). This symbol, the tongue necklace, shows the change in Mary Anne’s demeanor from sweet and innocent to ruthless and frigid. She became an empty husk of who she was before. The necklace served as a trophy, the winnings from her kills, like a deer head mounted above a hunter’s fireplace. The old Mary Anne

Since God was not tolerant of sinners and evil acts, Mary recounted many different acts that were considered evil or barbaric that the Native Americans did. For example, when the Native Americans attacked Mary’s town, she described the aftermath as, “a solemn sight to see so many Christians lying in their blood, some here and some there, like a company of sheep torn by wolves,” (Derounian 12-51). Mary separates the

First, Twyla introduces Mary from the beginning of the story, as her mother claiming that she was put in St. Bonny’s, because mother have been all night dancing. Twyla reveals that she

Mary killed her husband by her hitting him on his head with a frozen leg of lamb. Her being a detective’s wife, knew how to set up her alibi. First, she cooked the murder weapon. She went to the grocer to establish her alibi; she was shopping for the evening dinner and was not home when her husband was killed. Mary called the police and told them her husband is dead. After verifying her alibi, Mary insisted on the detectives eating the murder weapon.

So the next day I went out to the woods again and started looking for arrows. I found a few good sticks and took them back to camp and started sharpening them. I put a little crease in the end of the arrow and then put in the quiver then I shot it and surprisingly it went pretty far probably a good 20 feet. So I took it out and started looking for food then I saw it a rabbit sitting right in front of me I put the arrow in the quiver and I shot it. I took it back to camp and I realized I had to skin it so I used my rock knife to skin it and I found another straight stick to stab the rabbit and then I cooked it over the fire. I was