User:Alexisyos/sandbox

Here is a draft for my proposed new article:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Draft:How_America_Was_Discovered#References

Summary[edit] How America Was Discovered is a documentation of the story told by Handsome Lake, and collected by Arthur C. Parker in his book Seneca Myths and Folk Tales [1]. The collection was published in 1923 by W.H. Fenton. This particular story can be found on pages 383-385.

In short, "How America Was Discovered" follows the quest of a young minister who found a book in his queen's old chest. The young minister reads the book and finds he has been deceived by the Lord. He then seeks help of the chief preachers who tell him to seek out the Lord himself. The next day the young minister looks out over the river and spots a "beautiful island" and a "castle built of gold" that he had not seen before. He believes this to "be the abode of the son of the Creator" and immediately goes back to the chief preachers to tell them of his discovery. All of the men journey to the river which is now "spanned by a bridge of gold." Since the chief preachers feared meeting the Lord, only the young minister approached the castle. The rest of the story goes like this:

A handsome man answers the door and welcomes the young minister into his house. It is revealed that the handsome man had originally wanted the young minister because he was bright, young, and not afraid. The handsome man tells the young minister that if he listens, he will be rich. Here is what the handsome man says next, "Across the ocean there is a great country of which you have not heard. The people there are virtuous; they have no evil habits or appetites but are honest and single-minded. A great reward is yours if you enter into my plans and carry them out." He then lists five things for the young minister to carry over: 1. Cards, to "make them gamble away their goods and idle away their time" 2. Money, to "make them dishonest and covetous" 3. A fiddle, to "make them dance with women" 4. Whiskey, to "excite their minds to evil doing" 5. Blood corruption, to "eat their strength and rot their bones" The young minister agreed to carry out the plan. The golden bridge disappears once he touches the other side. Remind you at this time he now questions whether he had actually seen the Lord. He does not tell the chief preachers of this plan, but instead takes it to Christopher Columbus. Columbus gathered boats and headed out towards the undiscovered land. Once they touched shore, they turned back to report what they had found. This resulted in immigration to America, and along with the immigration came "cards, money, fiddles, whiskey, and blood corruption." The ending reveals that the man in the golden palace was the devil, and when "he saw what his words had done he said that he made a great mistake and even he lamented that his evil had been so enormous."

Sources Seneca Myths and Folktales [

A Tale of How America Was Discovered
How America Was Discovered is a story told by Handsome Lake and documented by Arthur C. Parker about a young minister who meets the one he perceives to be the Lord, who then asks him to go to a new land and bring with him cards, money, a fiddle, whiskey, and blood corruption. In return the young minister will become rich. The young minister sought out Christopher Columbus, and with the help of his crew, traveled to the Americas. They turned back to report what they had seen, which caused an immigration of people from Europe to the Americas. Along with the people came the five things that aided in destroying the natives. The end reveals that the "Lord" in the gold castle was actually the devil, and that even he knew what he had caused was wrong.

Edit for Reference section for external links
 * Arthur C. Parker, "Seneca Myths and Folk Tales", 1923

Alexisyos (talk) 19:12, 4 December 2014 (UTC)

On Arthur C. Parker Career[edit] He was field archaeologist at the Peabody Museum in 1903; beginning 1906, he was archaeologist of the New York State Museum. In 1904, Parker was given a two-year position as ethnologist for the New York State Department of Education, and collected cultural data on the New York Iroquois. Then in 1906, he took a position as the first archaeologist at the New York State Museum (http://www.nysm.nysed.gov).[5]
 * add contribution to documenting the stories of Handsome Lake

In 1911, together with the Native American physician Charles A. Eastman and others, he founded the Society of American Indians to help educate the public about Native Americans. From 1915 to 1920, he was the editor of the society’s American Indian Magazine.

In 1925 Parker became director of the Rochester Museum of Arts and Sciences, where he developed the museum holdings and its research in the emerging fields of anthropology, natural history, geology, biology, history and industry of the Genesee Region. During the 1930s and the Great Depression, he also directed the WPA-funded Indian Arts Project, which was sponsored by the Franklin D. Roosevelt administration.

In 1935, Parker was elected the first President of the Society for American Archaeology. In 1944, Parker helped found the National Congress of American Indians.

Parker contributed to documenting the stories of Handsome Lake in Seneca Myths and Folk Tales. "Parker was attempting. . .to reproduce the tales like native storytellers while interpreting them for a wider audience. . . . It is high time that this treasure was reprinted in a paperback edition and made available to scholars, the native Iroquois, and the general reader."—William N. Fenton

External Links Arthur C. Parker, Seneca Myths and Folk Tales, 1923

Alexisyos (talk) 19:20, 4 December 2014 (UTC) Alexisyos (talk) 16:32, 9 December 2014 (UTC)