Was grandmother willow invented for the disney film, or already part of the legend?
The actually personification of the spirit of the willow into a talking tree was, of course, just an invention of Disney. However, the Native Americans believe in the spirit of all things and that if you ‘listen with your heart’, you can actually understand what the spirits of the Earth are trying to tell you. There is no specific mention in the Story of Pocahontas and John Smith about Pocahontas consulting the spirit of the Willow. The disney version of this event is highly inaccurate anyway…so I wouldn’t go about believing anything about that movie. The movie was not made as a history lesson, but it gives some good ‘press’ to Native American beliefs, and portrays them in a much more positive light than many previous films have.
