A blind boy lived with his mother and sister in isolation. Despite his blindness, he killed a bear with his mother’s help, but she deceived him and kept the meat. His sister secretly fed him. A loon later restored his eyesight. Discovering his mother’s treachery, he drowned her during a narwhal hunt, turning her into a narwhal. The siblings later encountered cannibalistic adlit; the sister was devoured but revived by her brother. They eventually found new communities, marrying and starting families
Source:
Tales of the Smith Sound Eskimo
by Alfred L. Kroeber
[The American Folklore Society]
Journal of American Folklore
Vol.12, No.46, pp.166-182
July-September, 1899
► Themes of the story
Transformation: The mother transforms into a narwhal after being pulled into the water, with her twisted hair becoming the narwhal’s tusk.
Family Dynamics: The story explores complex relationships within the family, highlighting the mother’s deceit, the sister’s loyalty, and the son’s quest for justice.
Revenge and Justice: The son seeks retribution against his mother for her betrayal, leading to her transformation into a narwhal.
► From the same Region or People
Learn more about the Inuit peoples
This tale also is of wide occurrence, being found among the Athabascan tribes, and even among the Heiltsuk on the Pacific coast. It varies remarkably little over this great extent of country.
There was a blind boy (or young man) who lived with his mother and sister. They went to a place where there was no one and lived alone. One day, when they were in their tent, a bear came up to it. Though the boy was blind he had a bow, and the woman aimed it at the bear for him. The arrow struck the bear and killed it. The mother, however, deceived her son and told him he had missed it. She cut it up and then cooked it. The young man now smelled the bear-meat, and asked his mother whether it was not bear he was smelling. She told him he was mistaken. Then she and her daughter ate it, but she would give him nothing. His sister, however, hide half of her food in her dress, to give him later. When her mother asked her why she was eating so much, the girl answered that she was hungry. Later, when her mother was away, she gave the meat to her brother. In this way he discovered that his mother had deceived him. Then he wished for another chance to kill something, when he might not be thus deceived by his mother.
► Continue reading…
One day, when he was out of doors, a large loon came down to him and told him to sit on its head. The loon then flew with him toward its nest, and finally brought him to it, on a large cliff. After they had reached this, it began to fly again, and took him to a pond [the ocean?]. The loon then dived with him, in order to make him recover his eyesight. It would dive and ask him whether he was smothering; when he answered that he was, it took him above the surface to regain his breath. Thus they dived, until the blind boy could see again His eyesight was now very strong; he could see as far as the loon, and could even see where his mother was, and what she was doing. Then he returned. When he came back, his mother was afraid, and tried to excuse herself, and treated him with much consideration.
One day he went narwhal-hunting, using his mother to hold the line. “Spear a small narwhal,” his mother said, for she feared a large one would drag her into the water by the line fastened around her. He speared a small one, and she pulled it ashore. Then they ate its blubber. The next time two appeared together, a small white whale and a large narwhal. “Spear the small one again,” she told him. But he speared the large one, and when it began to pull, he let go the line, so that his mother was dragged along, and forced to run, and pulled into the water. “My knife,” she cried, in order to cut the rope. She kept calling for her knife, but he did not throw it to her, and she was drawn away and drowned. She became a narwhal herself, her hair, which she wore twisted to a point, becoming the tusk.
After this, the man who had recovered his sight, and his sister, went away. Finally they came to a house. The brother was thirsty, and wanted water. He asked his sister for some, telling her to go to the house for it. She went up to it, but was at first afraid to go in. “Come in, come in!” cried the people inside, who were murderous adlit. When she entered, they seized her and ate her. She had stayed away a long time, and finally her brother went to look for her. He entered the house, but could not find her. An old man there, after having eaten of her, tried to say he did not have her, and did not know where she was. The brother, however, kept stabbing the inmates of the house with a tusk he had, trying to make them confess, but vainly, and finally killed them. Then her brother put her bones together and went away, carrying them on his back. Then the flesh grew on the bones again, and soon she spoke, “Let me get up!” But he said to her, “Don’t get up!” At last she got up, however. Then they saw a great many people, and soon reached them. By this time his sister had quite recovered; she ate, and went into a house. She married there, and soon had a child. Her brother also married.
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