Stories
According to Karl May's story, first-person narrator Old Shatterhand encounters Winnetou and after initial dramatic events, a true friendship between Old Shatterhand and the Apache Winnetou arises; on many occasions they give proof of great fighting skill but also of compassion for other human beings. It portrays a belief in an innate "goodness" of mankind, albeit constantly threatened by ill-intentioned enemies.
Non-dogmatic Christian feelings and values play an important role, and May's heroes are often described as German Americans.
Winnetou became the chief of the tribe of the Mescalero Apaches (and of the Apaches in general, with the Navajo included) after his father Intschu-tschuna and his sister Nscho-tschi were slain by the white bandit Santer. He rode a horse called Iltschi ("Wind") and had a famous rifle called "Silberbüchse" ("The Silver Gun", a double-barrel rifle whose stock and butt were decorated with silver studs). Old Shatterhand became the blood brother of Winnetou and rode the brother of Iltschi, called Hatatitla ("Lightning").
Read more about this topic: Winnetou
Famous quotes containing the word stories:
“Castaway, your time is a flat sea that doesn’t stop,
with no new land to make for and no new stories to swap.”
—Anne Sexton (1928–1974)
“the tide lays down its wet throat
and alters the land to island—even as I watch
I say there is no shore
apart from stories of it,
no smoke, no hut, no beacon ...”
—Lynn Emanuel (b. 1949)
“Long before I wrote stories, I listened for stories. Listening for them is something more acute than listening to them. I suppose it’s an early form of participation in what goes on. Listening children know stories are there. When their elders sit and begin, children are just waiting and hoping for one to come out, like a mouse from its hole.”
—Eudora Welty (b. 1909)