The Bloody Knife

The Indian (Micmac) myth of The Bloody Knife retells of a brutal battle between two Micmac warriors from rival villages. A terrible argument escalates quickly into a knife fight on the banks of a small creek. Fighting with the ferocity of grizzlies, the warriors' quarrel ensues. Unexpectedly, one of the warriors slips on the muddy bank only to receive a watery fate. His knife is dropped into the creek and he unrelentingly struggles to take grasp of the weapon. Further and further with every stretch of his fingers the knife descends deeper and deeper. It is impossible for the warrior to reach it; the knife's descent is persistent even as the creek itself is shallow. The creek swallows the man's life force and his body soundly travels to the bank of his village. The knife lay at the bottom of the blood ravished creek still falling deeper into the abyss no matter how hard anyone tries to take hold of it. Even the rushing waters of spring leave the blade unmoved and untainted, still bloodstained.

The Micmac myth of the dueling warriors of rival villages portrays the generalizations of Native American oral traditions. Four generalizations could be made when analyzing oral traditions of Indians, including practical information and morality, the idea of man's equality or sometimes inferiority to nature, the use of metaphor, and preserving historical continuity. Throughout The Bloody Knife, a profound sense of evil and the link between immorality and death are persistent. With action comes consequence and wrongful action leads to cutting consequence. The warriors resort to violence rather than reason leaving raison d'кtre at the bankside with the only success being bloodshed. Nothing was gained by the dead or wounded, teaching the idea of solving quarrels with words rather than brutality. This decisive act of animal instinct narrows the spread between man and nature. It shows man's raw being as nothing more than a vicious beast with