Like most early peoples, natives of the Americas had their own Creation myths and explanations for various cosmological phenomena. Dreamtales offers two original animated story cycles: "Watunna," (1989) by Stacey Steers, which is based on the early beliefs of the Yekuana Indians of the Venezuelan rainforest; and Faith Hubley's "Starlore" (1984), which draws from early North and South American tribal myths about the celestial bodies. "Watunna," which means "the memory of our beginning" is an engaging cycle of five narrated and animated tales exploring the genesis of evil, the night, sexuality, fire, and food. Uniformly clever, the tales combine the gut-level power of archetypal myths with a few detours into the weird: in the story about sexuality, for instance, a man is attracted to a fish-woman (fish in water, woman on shore), but his friends warn him not to do the reproductive tango with her because she has piranha in her sexual organs. "Starlore," on the other hand, is pretty much for Hubley fans only. The shorts range from an Inuit legend about a race between the Sun and the Moon, to a Peruvian myth about the birth of the Sun. The non-narrated cycle offers some colorful images, but not much in the way of coherent stories. An optional purchase. (Available from most distributors.)
Dreamtales
(1993) 35 min. $19.95. Atlas Video. Home video rights only. Color cover. Vol. 8, Issue 6
Dreamtales
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