A hunter staying in a snow-hut saw what appeared to be his wife running naked outside, only to find her calmly at home upon his return. Driven mad by the vision, he terrified his wife, who fled with their baby. Near starvation, she offered a partridge to a bald-headed bear, who later rewarded her kindness with a steady supply of seals for her survival.
Source:
Tales and Traditions of the Eskimo
by Henry Rink
[William Blackwood and Sons]
Edinburgh and London, 1875
► Themes of the story
Transformation: The hunter’s sudden descent into madness represents a profound psychological change, impacting his family’s fate.
Conflict with Nature: The wife’s encounter with the bald-headed bear highlights the tension between humans and the natural world, especially in survival situations.
Sacred Objects: The partridge offered to the bear serves as a pivotal token, symbolizing the exchange that leads to the wife’s subsequent survival.
► From the same Region or People
Learn more about the Inuit peoples
Abridged version of the story.
A married couple lived on a lonely spot far from other people. When the man was out on his hunting-ground his place of refuge used to be a snow-hut. Once, when he was stopping in it, he saw his wife running about quite naked. Greatly excited, he hastened home, but found his wife inside the house, sitting quietly with her baby, without having stirred. The man now went raving mad; and the wife, frightened at seeing him in such a state, fled from the house with her child. When at the very point of starvation she chanced to catch a partridge, but seeing a terrible bald-headed bear approaching, she threw the bird to him and made her escape. Afterwards, when she had built herself a hut on the shore, she always got an ample supply of newly-killed seals, which used to come drifting in, being gifts from the grateful bear.
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