A man becomes ensnared in sunbeam snares set by the man-eating giant, Holdile. Feigning death, he is placed in a sack and carried to the giant’s home. The man escapes, deceives the giant’s children, and flees. After a chase, he tricks the giant into burning his cape and kills him with a stick. However, the giant resurrects and continues hunting humans.
Source:
Chipewyan Texts
by Pliny Earle Goddard
The American Museum of Natural History – Anthropological Papers
Volume X, Part 1
New York, 1912
► Themes of the story
Trickster: The protagonist uses cunning and deception to escape from the giant.
Mythical Creatures: The giant, Holdile, represents a mythical being within the narrative.
Conflict with Nature: The man’s entrapment in sunbeams and his navigation through the muskeg highlight struggles against natural forces.
► From the same Region or People
Learn more about the Chipewyan people
A man was walking alone one time when something happened to him. Although he could not see anything when he looked about, he took his knife and began slashing the air as he turned from side to side. He found himself tied up worse than before and that he had been caught in sunbeams which someone had set for a snare. After a time he heard someone coming along, saying to himself, “I think I feel something.” Before the person came to him, the man hit himself and covered himself with his own blood. The giant came to him and thinking him dead put him in a sack. It was the giant, Holdile, who eats men. He started away carrying the man on his back. He put him down occasionally to rest. The man tried to make no noise but sniffled in spite of himself. “I heard something,” the giant said and took the load off.
► Continue reading…
Then he tickled the man all over on his hands, feet, and body. The man was unusually powerful and was able to refrain from laughing. He put him back in the sack and carried him to his home. He hung the sack on a tree and went away to the top of a hill to cut some sticks with which to make spits for roasting the kidneys.
When he had gone away, the man began to swing himself gently in the sack, until he fell down. The young ones called out, “Father, your caribou is alive.” The man jumped up, put ashes in the children’s mouths and ran away. The giant ran after him. They came to an island that lay in the midst of the muskeg. They ran around it until he was tired. The giant shouted to the man. “My son, make a fire for me, I am cold.” He had been sweating and his clothes were wet. They stood by the fire drying themselves. The giant hung his cape up to dry and lay down with his back to the fire. Soon the man broke a piece of wood. “What did you do that for?” asked the giant. “I am going to fix the fire with it,” the man said. Then he told him, “Grandfather, your cape fell into the fire.” The man had pushed it in with the stick. He struck the giant and killed him with the same stick that he had used to push the cape into the fire. After a time, he came to life again. The man ran away but the giant ran after him. The giant is still hunting men.
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