All of the gathered articles will then be burnt as an offering to God for the evils committed by the people. He tells them that they must each give up an important possession for this sacrifice. The only way the drought will end is for the people to make sacrifices to atone for the evils they have done. After several days, he returns to the village and states that God is angry with the people because of their selfishness. He asks God to explain why this suffering is occurring. The spiritual leader of the tribe, the shaman, goes into the hills to pray about the situation. Everyone is trying to explain how the drought happened and what is necessary to stop the phenomenon. He entitles the book: “The Legend of the Bluebonnet: An Old Tale of Texas.”ĭuring a period of severe drought, the Comanche people suffer much want. Tomie DePaola has taken an old Comanche tale about the origin of the bluebonnet flower and crafted the legend into a lovely story. Storytelling and oral tradition are highly developed in Native American societies and many tribes have a number of legends. Most cultures have legends and this is particularly true of Native American tribes. In this sense they speak to a higher truth that of human experience. While they are not actually factual, legends can be informative and comforting. Legends are created stories to explain the origin of places and things. Putnam’s Sons, New York, 1983, 32 pages, Grades K-3. “The Legend of Bluebonnet: An Old Tale of Texas”

The legend of the bluebonnet