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Reading Notes: Marriage Tales, Part B

 The Dog Husband

This story was very different from others... to say the least. It began with a girl who had a dog. Every night the dog would sleep at the end of her bed. However, in the middle of the night the dog would turn into a human. When morning came, the dog turned back from human to dog so no one was aware of the situation. After some amount of time, the girl became pregnant and the parents concluded that the only possible way was that it was the dog. So in order to punish the girl, the father killed the dog and the girl was left in a burning house to die. The entire village moved away, but little did they know that the girl had received help from Crow and had survived the burning fire. Living alone, the girl eventually gave birth to five pups, four males and one female. As the girl and her children grew up, the boys became more mischievous. The girl would catch them doing mischievous acts that would bring more shame to their people. The girl then guided the boys to a more structured upbringing- teaching them how to catch game and eventually even kill whales. Eventually the Crow came to visit the girl and her children, and saw numerous dead whales on the beaches of their land. She reported what she found to the girl, and the girl pleaded that she would not tell the people who abandoned her. The girl wanted the people to think that she had remained dead. When the crow arrived back to the people, she did not do what was asked and instead told the people of the numerous whales that had been caught by the boy children. The people decided to return to the land, and the boys all became the chiefs of the village while constantly supplying people with whale food. 

[Beached Whale. Image Information.]


Bibliography

Thompson, Stith. The Dog Husband. Tales of North American Indians. 1929. Link. 

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