Reading Notes: Marriage Tales, Part A

The she-buffalo-calf-woman.

(Image by Rogue Guirey Simpson)

North American Indian tales are strange. Most stories are of hybrid animals. For example, the chickenhawk. Also, the animal kingdom is non-existent and they all are on about the same level. All animals are free to marry who and what ever they please. Some humans turn into animals and vice versa. Birthing is also different. In “Splinter-Foot-Girl,” a child was born from a leg a person cut their leg on a thorn.

Some stories are extremely vague. “Bear-woman and Deer-woman” didn’t seem to have a point. There were no goals shared and reasoning for their actions. “The Piqued Buffalo-Wife” also seemed pointless. A mother gives birth to a boy, who then seeks to find his father. When he does the father sticks around but breaks a promise and his wife and child turn into animals. In the end they are reunited and turned back into their human forms. There is no apparent reason for any of these changes. The man even guess wrong on the last try and his wife and son were still turned back, even though he had failed.

Human to animal relationships were normal in these tales as well. In “The Eagle and Whale Husband” a little girl claims that she will marry an eagle and her friend claims that she will marry a whale. This story does not have a happy ending.

Most of these North American Indian tales do not have happy endings. The tales are mainly about things happening. A regular event. They don’t explain why things happen and the resolutions don’t always have a purpose. “The Fox-woman” is about a woman-fox who sneaks into a hunters house. She tells him she is his wife and he agrees to the arrangement. He noticed a smell one day and the woman told him it was her and she transformed back into a fox and left him. She never came back.

Bibliography. Stith Thompson. Tales of the North American Indians. Web source.