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Author
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Comment
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Chris K
Unregistered User
(2/4/02 4:13:10 pm)
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Question About a Native American Tale
In The Power of Myth, Campbell metions a native American folk tale about a girl who rejects all suitors until a stranger appears. She agrees to marry him and goes of to live with him only to find out he and his relatives are powerful magicians that turn themselves into snakes. With the help of an old man, who tells her she must steal their hearts which are in a bag hanging from a tree, she escapes.
Campbell was pretty sketchy. Has any one heard of this folk tale or any ones similiar to it? I would like to know also the themes at work in it, or the "lesson" it teaches.
Thanks,
Chris K.
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Jess
Unregistered User
(2/8/02 8:06:39 am)
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Snake story
Chris,
Try reading Gregory McNamee's book Snakes in Folklore and Literature (Univ. of Georgia Press 2000). I am not sure if it is there, but it is worth a quick check.
Jess
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Midori
Unregistered User
(2/10/02 3:41:35 am)
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Fine Gentleman
There is a wonderful African tale (I think it might be in Amos Tutuola's novel that is composed of Nigerian tales--"The Palm Wine Drunkard"--though there are probably other versions of it elsewhere too) called "The Very Beautiful, Fine Gentleman." It's quite similiar--a young woman has rejected all of the usual suitors and one day in the market sees a very handsome man that she decides she wants to marry. Knowing nothing about him, she begins to follow him home--which of course is in the bush. As the fine gentleman gets deeper into the bush, he begins returning various body parts to people he has borrowed them from, until at last in the woods, the young woman discovers that she is living with a skeleton.
As far as lessons go--aside from the cautionary tales about taking up with strange men--the story reinforces the traditional social rules of marriage--which involve family, a complex exchange of gifts and some kind of knowledge of just who a young woman is marrying. Marriages were about the union not only of couples, but of families as well. The complex interactions that take place before are a way of both insuring the connection between these units, but also for the bride--who will leave the protection of her family and home to marry into another situation--a way of insuring her protection as well. To marry an unknown, to go away without family to support you, might well have been regarded as a receipe for disaster for the young woman. But it also underscores I believe the present danger for young brides--marriage took one away from all that was familiar and moved you into a situation where you have no status, no rights and were quite often at the mercy of the groom's families. The longer the marriage contracts, the exchange of gitfts, and the more involved one's family was in the marriage--the more secure a girl could feel. At least, that was the hope--if not always the reality.
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janeyolen
Unregistered User
(2/10/02 4:17:51 am)
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snakes
In the Russian story "The Water Snake" (which you can find in my MIRROR, MIRROR) the girl marries the man who becomes a snake and lives with the snake. When Mama discovers this, she bobbits the snake, and daughter is NOT pleased.
I think this variation (not a variant) is more about a mother's perception of her daughter's life than the Indian story. Mother trying to rule her daughter, disliking (or fearing) the stranger who has taken her child away.
Jane
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Gregor9
Registered User
(2/13/02 8:24:34 am)
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Themes
Chris,
Thematically, I think this format turns up in a variety of Native American tales.
Judith Berman, who's an anthropologist specializing in NW Coast peoples, as well as being an sf and fantasy writer, worked with a variant a few years back in her story, "Lord Stink", that appeared in Realms of Fantasy magazine. In her tale, the supernatural beings are bears.
I think, as with the figure of Coyote, the specificity of the stranger varies with location, tribe and custom.
GF
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gin
Unregistered User
(2/18/02 1:15:45 pm)
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Question about a native american tale
I just today read this story--as a Puerto Rican folktale. I got
it from the internet: www.yale.edu/ynhti/curric....1993/2/93
Called The Arrogant Princess
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Chris K
Unregistered User
(3/1/02 12:42:45 pm)
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Thanks
Thanks everyone! Sorry not to reply sooner. I got lost under a stack of student papers. But I did find time to read MIRROR MIRROR cover to cover. Great! Thanks also for the site for The Arrogant Princess. And Midori for your insight. (I wanted to use wolves rather than snakes in my story and I was hoping it hadn't been done before--or at least in the way I'm thinking of. )
What issue of REALMS does Judith Berman's story appear?
Thanks again,
Chris K.
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Richard
Parks
Registered User
(3/1/02 1:55:56 pm)
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Re: Thanks
"Lord Stink" sounds like the sort of tale that Realms often does run, but it actually appeared in Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine, August 1997, according to Judith Berman's biblio.
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Judith Berman
Unregistered User
(4/12/02 6:27:54 am)
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deceptive suitors
Hi, all,
Winging in a bit late, but I just found this site, and this discussion... There is another north Pacific story where the handsome suitor the chief's daughter accepts, after she rejects all others, turns out to be a frog. In their town under the lake they live like human beings. This story is explicitly a tragedy with a moral. Her children decide to visit their human grandfather. But because no one recognizes them in their frog shapes, which they assume when they leave home, they are killed. The moral is that we are all related, we are connected even to something as lowly as a frog, and nothing should ever be hurt needlessly.
The Bear Husband story (source material of "Lord Stink") is more widespread and has more variants, and I wouldn't want to impose one reading on it (as being about marriage with outsiders, etc.). There is also, in the north, a Bear Wife story which is both similar to and different from the animal husband stories.
"Lord Stink," by the way, is being reprinted this summer in a chapbook from Small Beer Press.
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Terri
Registered User
(4/12/02 6:31:51 am)
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Re: deceptive suitors
Welcome, Judith!
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Richard
Parks
Registered User
(4/12/02 7:58:18 am)
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Re: deceptive suitors
Indeed! Welcome, Judith.
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Jane Yolen
Unregistered User
(4/12/02 10:30:55 am)
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Another hi
From me, too!
Jane
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Gregor9
Registered User
(4/12/02 10:36:20 am)
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Re: Another hi
Yep, Richard was right--that was Judith's first Asimov's sale, not her first Realms of Fantasy story.
Judith, I hope you can find time to check in now and again. Especially on the "Upcoming Publications" topic.
For the rest--she is currently finishing up her first novel, which is going to be a terrific work (I've seen about 2/3 of it now), again with NW Coast overtones to it. In fact, if you know "Lord Stink" the novel takes place not long after that story, among the same people. And if you don't know "Lord Stink", get the chapbook, dogear the pages, and then you'll be ready to devour the novel when it comes out.
Greg
Edited by: Gregor9 at: 4/12/02 10:44:51 am
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Midori
Unregistered User
(4/12/02 3:05:23 pm)
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Welcome
Welcome Judith! It's always great to have another voice on the board.
Hey Chris K. ---are you my Chris K? Magician's Assistant extraordinaire? And is this the wolf story you've been working on? Good lord I know I've been busy when the only time I can meet my neighbor is on the board!
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Judith
Berman
Registered User
(4/14/02 6:48:02 pm)
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Re: Another hi
Thanks, everyone!
And thanks, Greg, re THE BEAR'S DAUGHTER (or, as I couldn't help thinking of it for a long while, DAUGHTER OF STINK). He doesn't mention, though, how close I am to my deadline and how far I still am from the end, and how I really shouldn't be distracting myself in places like this, no matter how interesting...
Judith
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