There Goes the
Neighborhood
The
Europeans are moving in. All around me, I see destruction. Corpses of deer,
rabbits, and other game lay around the ground, with single holes in them that
seem to leave no arrow inside. These people have interesting weapons – they
move so quickly the projectiles cannot be seen, and are always accompanied with
a loud “BANG!”. The group closest to us call themselves The Puritans. They seem
like a very dedicated folk – dedicated to destroying the area around them and going
to something they call “Church”. This “Church” has them all standing before one
man, like their Chief, speaking English to them. They seem to worship one
person, named God, and He seems to like to tell them to do things. They are all
forced to go to “Church” on the seventh day, and pray all day. None of them
seem to think this is a big deal – in fact, I think they enjoy it. Most of my
friends have moved their homes away from the settlement of these Puritans, and
they all are pressuring our Chief to move the entire settlement. He believes that
we can strike a relationship with these Puritans and help them, but I know that
I personally and many of our tribe believe that they will not accept our help
unless we join them in worshipping God. I prefer to worship our many Gods and
Goddesses, because it lets me pray more for rain or a certain harvest to be
bountiful rather than praying to one God and hoping that He will interpret my
prayers and offerings correctly and bring the rain or make the harvest
bountiful. They seem to think that they can gauge this one God’s happiness or
discontent with them with only their preachers’ words and actions and their own
fortunes. This is simply not true, as these preachers often times aren’t the
best influences, especially upon the children of the village. Many a time I
have heard screams of the children as the preachers speak of things such as
devils and witches. Alas, unless our Chief tells us to move away, we must
remain here and attempt to interact with them.
You did a great job Adam, I loved your opening and how descriptive it was. You did a good job of creating a first person narrative and I liked that. One thing I would dispute is the knowledge the Natives have on the colonists. Personally, I don't think they had quite as vast of a sense of their religion but it was a good piece regardless!
ReplyDeleteThank you Quincy! I appreciate your compliment. I wanted to portray the interactions the Native Americans may have had with the colonists, especially the Puritans. The Puritans wanted to either drive out any other religion or convert anyone to their religion. Because I wanted to portray all (or at least most) of the Natives' interactions with the Europeans, I had to include something about the religion. However, I see your point. I could probably improve my entry by stating that the Europeans had attempted to convert the Native American through which I wrote the narrative. Thank you again!
DeleteGreat job with the description, it somewhat helps put a perspective on what the Native Americans thought when this was all happening. But would the Natives really try to seek a relationship with the Puritans? The Puritans are destroying what they consider to be sacred. Would anyone want to seek peace with someone who destroys what they believe in?
ReplyDeleteGreat job Adam! Very descriptive writing piece with perfect tone and choice of words. As Quincy previously stated, the natives weren`t as familiar with the puritans as you portrayed them to be, but good read regardless.
ReplyDeleteAdam, I love the way the picture was dipicted in my mind. The description was really great. Sensory details were used in a very professional way . Perhaps a bit more information on the "would rather belief in my gods / goddesses" part since it would be very coherent to the piece . Overall I really liked it , a piece very well written .
ReplyDeleteI really like this. I feel like I can get a sense of how the Native American really felt personally about the Puritans coming in on them and destroying everything
ReplyDelete