Long ago, a young man from the north journeyed south to marry the only woman known to live there. Another northern man, envious, attempted to abduct her, resulting in a struggle that split the woman in two. Both men replaced her missing halves with wood, creating two women. Their traits—dexterous northern needlework and southern dancing—passed to their descendants, reflecting this tale’s truth.
Source:
The Eskimo about Bering Strait
by Edward William Nelson
[Smithsonian Institution]
Bureau of American Ethnology
Eighteenth Annual Report
Washington, 1900
► Themes of the story
Transformation: The woman is physically divided and each half is reconstructed with wooden parts, resulting in two living women with distinct characteristics.
Creation: The story explains the origin of two groups of women, each inheriting specific traits from their respective ‘mothers.’
Family Dynamics: The narrative explores relationships and conflicts, such as the abduction attempt and the subsequent division of the woman, affecting familial and societal structures.
► From the same Region or People
Learn more about Inuit peoples
This tale refers to notable facts in regard to the accomplishments of the women in the districts north and south of St Michael.
Very long ago there were many men living in the northland, but there was no woman among them. Far away in the southland a single woman was known to live. At last one of the young men in the north started and traveled to the south until he came to the woman’s house, where he stopped and in a short time became her husband. One day he sat in the house thinking of his home and said, “Ah, I have a wife, while the son of the headman in the north has none.” And he was much pleased in thinking of his good fortune.
Meanwhile the headman’s son also had set out to journey toward the south, and while the husband was talking thus to himself the son stood in the entrance passage to the house listening to him. He waited there in the passage until the people inside were asleep, when he crept into the house and, seizing the woman by the shoulders, began dragging her away.
► Continue reading…
Just as he reached the doorway he was overtaken by the husband, who caught the woman by her feet. Then followed a struggle, which ended by pulling the woman in two, the thief carrying the upper half of the body away to his home in the northland, while the husband was left with the lower portion of his wife. Each man set to work to replace the missing parts from carved wood. After these were fitted on they became endowed with life, and so two women were made from the halves of one.
The woman in the south, however, was a poor needlewoman, owing to the clumsiness of her wooden fingers, but was a fine dancer. The woman in the north was very expert in needlework, but her wooden legs made her a very poor dancer. Each of these women gave to her daughters these characteristics, so that to the present time the same difference is noted between the women of the north and those of the south, thus showing that the tale is true.
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Dreamtime Whispers 