Wikipedia Trail: From Sioux to Lake-Effect-Snow

Fort Chipewyan

I started the Wikipedia Trail on the Sioux Indians since that is what I read this week. I learned that the Sioux were divided into three language divisions: Dakota, Lakota, and Nakota. The Dakota division were actually involved with the French in the North American fur trade in the late 17^th century.  The fur trade had a fierce competition between the British and the French. The Iroquois were caught in the middle of this fierce battle and ended up migrating to the GreatLakes. The Great Lakes consist of multiple bodies of water that actually possesses close to 20% of the world’s fresh water. Since they are so large, they have impacts on the regional weather in this area. The phenomena is called the Lake-Effect snow. This is where cold air masses move across the warm bodies of water, causing a snow storm. 

Wikipedia Trail: From Sir Lancelot to the Holy Grail

I started this week’s Wikipedia Trail on Sir Lancelot from the Twitter page. He is a fictionally character that is one of the best swordsman and jousters during the time period. He is a part of the Knights ofthe Round Table so I ended up clicking on that next. I found out that this is a table that indicates equality among the men associated with King Arthur’s court. It was first developed by Wace all the way back in 1155. I actually ended up going to King Arthur’s page next. His existence is actually up to debate which I find very strange. However, he was actually one of the close companions to Lancelot and they were first put together when Chretien de Troyes introduced the Holy Grail. Therefore, I clicked on the Holy Grail next. The finding of the Holy Grail gives the discoverer eternal happiness and life. The Holy Grail is a commonly written about item because of its uniqueness. 

Wikipedia: Knights of the Round Table

Wikipedia Trail: From Brer Rabbit to Abraham Lincoln

I started my Wikipedia Trail on Brer Rabbit since I ended up reading this story this week. Brer Rabbit is considered a trickster hero who has foes of Brer Fox and Brer Wolf. My favorite story I read was of Tar-Baby where he is almost tricked into getting stuck onto a Tar-Baby by Brer Fox. He was created by Joel Chandler Harris so I went to his page next. Harris was a journalist and fiction writer during the late 1800’s and early 1900’s. One of the most influential pieces to him writing these stories was Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe. This book was written in 1852 and focused on the typical stereotypes African Americans faced in pre-Civil War America. Next, I chose AbrahamLincoln because I find him to be one of my favorite presidents. He was born in Kentucky in 1809 and passed in 1865 as the 16^th president.

Wikipedia: Young Abraham Lincoln

Wikipedia Trail: From Sun Wukong to He Xiangu

I started off my Wikipedia Trail on Sun Wukong because I read the Monkey King this week. I liked reading this page because it gave a synopsis of what I had just read. It would have helped to check this out before my readings. One of my favorite parts was when he at the Peaches of Immortality so I went to this page next. I did not know that in the Chinese culture peaches are commonly used to display immortality in art. At the end of the page I selected the Eight Immortals as my next Wikipedia page. These people are included in Chinese mythology and are capable of bestowing life and destroying evil. These remind me of the Greek gods. I wanted to learn about them individually so I picked on the first person named He Xiangu. She is actually the only female in these Eight Immortals. She possesses a lotus flower that restores health, mentally and physically. 

Wikipedia: Eight Immortals

Wikipedia Trail: From Buddha to the Nepalese Royal Massacre

I started my Wikipedia Trail on Gautama Buddha since I read the Life of Buddha this past week. I wanted to learn more about him since I knew very little before this reading. I ended up choosing to click on Suddhodana next because I was curious to see what happened to Siddhartha’s son after his departure. I learned that he ended up seeing him one more time just before Suddhodana died. Next, I clicked on Nepal because that is where they were from. I ended up reading about some of Nepal’s history, specifically about the Kingdom of Nepal. This time period ran from 1768 all the way until 2008. One major incident that struck my interest was in June 2001 the King and Queen were massacred. This was known as the Nepalese Royal Massacre. The Prince Dipendra was the perpetrator that killed his parents and other family members.

Wikipdeia

Wikipedia Trail: From Sinbad the Sailor to Kublai Khan

Since I started reading The Seven Voyages of Sinbad, I chose to start my Wikipedia Trail with Sinbad the Sailor. My favorite part of the story was when Sinbad hid on the claw of a giant bird called a roc to escape from being eaten. Therefore, my next page I clicked on was the roc, or giant mythical bird. One thing I learned was that it was actually included in the Ramayana and the Mahabharata. I read these in Epics of India so I am glad to see a connection in these readings. When I scrolled down to the bottom I saw the Marco Polo once accounted for seeing a large island that possessed such birds. I read about the life of Marco Polo because although I know the name, I do not know much about his travels. They went on an epic 24 year journey only to return and realize Venice was at war. When he was imprisoned, he told of his tales and that is how he became famous. When reading about other travels, I noticed that he met with Kublai Khan, the grandson of the famous Genghis Khan. Kublai was responsible for creating the Yuan dynasty during the late 1200s. This dynasty ruled over much of Asia until the middle of the 1300s. 

Wikipedia: Marco Polo

Wikipedia Trail: From Cyclops to Homeric Questions

Since I just finished reading Homer’s Odyssey, I decided to start my search with cyclops. I learned some information such as cyclops actually means “round-eyed”. The page does mention that Homer’s cyclops in the Odyssey may actually not have been a single eyed giant but instead he had two eyes. Since I actually read Homer’s Odyssey, I ended up selecting Polyphemus as my next Wikipedia page. Polyphemus. He is an interesting character that is a giant cyclops and also the son of Poseidon. I wanted to learn more about his character and his origin. Reading about him, I got more interested in Homer himself as an author. I find it interesting that his life was filled with such ambiguity. No one really knows who he was because there are rumored stories about him. Also, some people question if Homer was actually a singular person or a group of authors. Since there is discrepancies in his life and work, I clicked on Homeric Questions. This is a page that explains some of the potential questions that surround his two famous epics. Below are some of the questions:

•        “Who is Homer”
•        “Are the Iliad and Odyssey of multiple or single authorship?”

This is interesting because I always thought it was known that Homer was a single man. I am going to continue research into his life. 

Wikipedia: Homer

Wikipedia Trail: From Hermes to Art of Ancient Egypt

Since I just finished reading Homer’s Illiad, I started my Wikipedia search on the God Hermes. I felt that he was very involved with this story regarding the Trojan War. I did not know that he was the son of Zeus or that he was considered a conductor of souls (Psychopomp). This led me to click on the page Psychopomp to learn more about these beings that escorted newly deceased souls into the afterlife. These were common in many different religions and cultures, each with their own psychopomp character. I specifically looked into the Egyptian psychopomp called Anubis. This Egyptian character is the commonly seen image of a man with a canine as a head. He was in charge of any mummification process and can be seen on many hieroglyphics from 3100 – 2980 BC. This page had a lot of history about Egypt, resulting in me to click on the page Art of Ancient Egypt. I skipped down to the hieroglyphic section to learn more information. It was first discovered and decoded in 1799 by Jean-Francois Champollion. These symbols and pictures are very difficult to understand and there is said to be over 700 symbols. 

Alamy: Anubis Hieroglyph 

Wikipedia Trail: From Odysseus to Achilles

Since I plan on reading Homer's Illiad and Odyssey, I started my Wikipedia Trail with the hero Odysseus. I have always heard about his adventures in both of Homer's epics, therefore I wanted to know a little more about him. One thing I learned was that during the Trojan War, he was one of the volunteers that almost fought the famous Trojan warrior Hector. This led me to click on the next article about the Trojan War. I read about the main parts of the Trojan War described in the Illiad. I learned about the main warriors and what happened to them during this part of the war. The main thing learned was that Hector killed the cousin of Achilles causing Achilles to be overcome with grief and anger. This resulted in the death of the famous Hector by the hands of Achilles. This led me to click on Achilles himself to understand where he came from and why he was fighting in the war in the first place. He's fate was given to him that he would either live in glory but die young, or live a long life with no adventure. Since he wanted glory, he chose to fight in the Trojan War and ultimately died because of that choice.

Wikipedia: (Triumph of Achilles)