sun and moon first post

my group for art is isabella tedii georgia and mitchell. we decided to act out georgias legend and there's a link to that at the bottom.  the characters we chose to make masks for are the sun, the moon, the eclipse, and the sign lady. I will be making a mask of the eclipse. we choose these characters because we felt that they summed up the important parts of the legend and we felt that there was no need to make human masks, we should try something different. for our 'play' we will be taping it and playing it back to the class, there are many characters in the myth so there is enough for all of us.  we wanted to have more than three in our group though because we wanted to try multiple masks and we wanted each character to be different to avoid confusion.

http://georgiarobinsonsblog.blogspot.ca/?m=1

My myth

Why do we have the English language?

Long, long ago on the very earth we live on today a war broke out between the humans and the namuhs. The namuhs have opposite morals of the humans, we as humans believe in life, love, respect, loyalty  the namuhs believed in death, hatred, sin and pure evil.  For thousands of years the namuhs and humans lived in peace with each other, they stayed on difference sides of the world and respected the borders, never crossing into another’s property.  Until one day a new leader took over the land of the namuhs and convinced them that the world was there’s for the taking.  The namuhs created an army and prepared for battle, they ambushed the humans and the humans that were not violently slaughtered mostly went into hiding, only leaving there hidden shelter and coming out into the open when they absolutely needed something.  Some humans were traitors and worked for the namuhs, these humans were given small houses, a supply of food and the gift of living in exchange for becoming slaves for the namuhs.  Three years after the attack the nmauhs thought they had the earth under control, what they didn’t know was there was a secret rebel force called the switchers underground that were planning an attack against the namuhs , the switchers had originally consisted of two friends that realized they needed to do something  shortly after the ambush, these two friends created a plan to switch the power from the hands of the namuhs back into the hands of the humans. The switchers have recruited over 2000 humans that have agreed to fight for their freedom, some of the switchers even worked as slaves for the namuhs to try to hear about their plans for the future. The switchers plan was to go to the North Pole which was considered the centre of the planet and was were the creation of all life was said to be born.  The creation story that the ancestors passed down about the North Pole was that many, many years ago a massive bolt of lightning struck the North Pole and at that time all the negative energy in the universe was transfer directly on one side of the earth and all the positive energy was transferred on the other. The namuhs and humans were born out of this energy.  This was not the information that mattered to the switchers; the swirchers cared about the second part of the creation story, the part that claimed that there was a switch to combine the humans and namuhs creating an entire new race that could live compatibly with one another.  This new race would experience hate, love, life, death and all the other emotions we experience today.  The story had it that this switch lay on the very ground of where this lightning struck many years ago.  The switchers believed that flipping the switch was the only way to stop this mayhem and let the world live compatibly once again. Completing this would take the participation of all 2000 switchers.  The switchers plan was to place all 2000 switchers in a line all the way to the beginning of the North Pole, a note with instructions will be passed down the line until eventually the note makes it to the final person in the line, the final person in the line will stand at the beginning of the North Pole, the switcher will run across the North Pole and read the instructions off the paper and flip the switch.  The switchers ran into a problem though, the namuhs spoke the same language as the humans so if any of the namuhs caught the note being passed and read it, all of the switchers would be killed immediately and the plan would be destroyed, there would be no chance for any good to ever roam the earth again.  The switchers quickly thought up a solution to their problems, they would simply create a new language, a language only the switchers could understand.  This way even if the namuhs opened the note they would not even understand one word of it.  The switchers studied there newly developed language day and night for months on end until they could fully speak the language.  They settled on calling the language ‘English’ because the two friends who originally started the rebel group were named Enily and Joglish.  The language symbolized the switcher’s independence and while speaking their own language they felt as if they were in control for once.   Now 4 years after the ambush the switchers were ready to make a move.  They slowly assembled a line that the note would be passed along, they move a little bit down every day until they were ready to pass the note.  They had to do it this way because if they were to have only runner go the whole way the runner would either get dehydrated, caught or even killed and the fate of the world would all depend on one runner.  This way if one switcher got killed or captured the line could carry on and the mission would still be successful.  It took several months for the switchers to form a line all the way to the North Pole, but it finally happened.  Throughout the years that the switchers were preparing to flip the switch they had competitions and training over who the final runner would be.  Just before the line was formed the final runner was selected, he was a young man named Peace.  Peace led the line over the several months.  Finally the plans were ready to be put into action.  The day the note was pasted to the first switcher was a legendary day for the entire rebel force; they knew that they could change the world.  The note was passed down the line relatively smoothly running into very few problems, a few switchers were captured, a few backed out last minute, and a few were killed.  The note continued to be passed along the line though.  Weeks and months passed but the note finally made it to Peace.  Peace received the note and sprinted as fast as he could to the middle of the North Pole; to the switch. The run took longer than expected and the other switchers began to worry that Peace had been caught.  Approximately one week later Peace reached the switch, he knew the fate of the world was in his hands.  He knew that this could go very wrong or very right, he understood that the humans and the namuhs would be combined, and he realized the consequences that would happen if the bad out power the good in this new race.  But he had been dreaming about this day since the switchers first recruited him many years ago, this was his time to change the Earth.  Peace opened the note and read what he must do; he must flip the switch and keep his hand on the switch the entire time, the change would be made when the lightning struck again like it did many years ago.  Peace would die, but he would die for the better good of the people.  He flipped the switch without hesitation.  The day went as the ancestors said it would.  There was a huge celebration and as the switchers thought when the humans and namuhs combined the good of the humans out powered that bad of the namuhs.  At the celebration English was designated an official language because without English the entire mission would be impossible to complete.  And finally, a new word was added to the English language, the word was peace, in memory and respect to the man that gave this world a chance to prosper; a chance to have peace.

myths

over the past few days in art class we've been watching a video that has to do with ancient traditions behind the creation of certain masks, we've talked about why certain things in cultures are sacred and we talked about what type of materials some masks are made up of and why they are made up of that. some traditions that I saw while watching the video included lots of dancing, tutorial dances, tribal and spiritual dances, and just dance for the fun of dancing in some cases. in many of the tribal and spiritual dances masks were a big part of the dance, the masks symbolized the ancient gods, cultures believed that by wearing the masks while dancing they were 'connecting' to there ancestors and the ancient gods there ancestors spread tales about. traditions are important to many cultures because it keep the cultures secretly connected..this is also the reason that some traditions should be kept sacred, if only certain cultures know the traditions, the traditions almost define them as a culture. many people also believe that if the sacred traditions are shared they will slowly fade away until they become nothing but a forgotten myth. we also learned about the materials of masks and why the materials are used. some materials that were used included turtle shells and metal, some cultures also used carved coral. they choose these materials because for one the believed there was a spiritual meaning behind these objects and two, they can basically stand against the test of time, in other words they would stay around or a long time. it is important for us to know what materials/objects these ancient masks were made out of because this way we know what was available to these people at the time it was made and it helps us better understand exactly were and when it was first created