A widow with three sons is visited by a Cree band. They threaten to kill her unless she agrees to keep their plan to attack her sons secret, promising her a husband in return. She consents, but her youngest son overhears her anticipation of their demise. The brothers decide to flee but, before leaving, one fatally wounds their mother, thwarting her betrayal.
Source:
The Beaver Indians
by Pliny Earle Goddard
The American Museum of Natural History – Anthropological Papers
Volume X, Part 4
New York, 1912
► Themes of the story
Love and Betrayal: The mother’s betrayal of her sons for personal gain.
Revenge and Justice: The sons’ act of killing their mother as retribution for her treachery.
Family Dynamics: The complex and tragic relationships within the family, highlighting themes of loyalty and betrayal.
► From the same Region or People
Learn more about the Dane-zaa people
Secured in English from Ike through John Bourassa.
There was a woman whose husband died leaving her with three small boys. She supported herself and her sons by killing rabbits and other small game. When the boys were grown up and were away one day hunting, a band of Cree came to their camp. They told the woman that they were coming the next morning to kill her sons. They were going to kill her right then unless she promised not to tell the sons. If she did not tell them they would let her live and she might have her choice of the whole band for a husband. She promised on this condition.
The sons came home late and went to bed. The youngest woke up early in the morning and saw his mother looking through a hole in the tipi. She was saying to herself, “I wish day would come quickly so I may have a husband and be rid of these boys.”
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When the son heard this he pushed a stick through a birchbark dish, lighted it in the fire for a torch, and ran outside. There he found the strangers’ tracks. When he told his brothers what he had heard and seen they agreed that they had better go to the larger camp. As they went out the door one of them shot the mother in the throat saying, “You will not have a husband.” When the Cree came they found the woman dead.
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