Awhile back I went to the library and picked up a book of folk tales. I was reading Otherland at the time and stories where a reoccurring theme, so it stood out to me and I decided to take it out.
I read a story in it today. It’s an old inuit tale that goes something like this.
Once there was an old woman who fell in love with her son’s wife. One day while here son was out hunting she made herself a penis out of sealbones and skin, hung it around her waist and went over to show her son’s wife, who liked it and they slept together. The old woman started hunting for the girl. The wife’s husband came back from hunting one day and saw that there where already seals in front of the igloo. His wife didn’t tell him anything. So the husband hide out and waited for whoever was leaving these seals behind to come over. Then he saw his mother coming up with a big hooded seal on her Kayak. This is where my understanding of the story gets tricky, because I think that it says that only the man and his mother where capable of killing hooded seals. Anyway, the old woman got out and started sweet talking her son’s wife, but her son killed her and told his wife that they have to leave because they are in a cursed place.
Reading that, it is easy to imagine that this is just some story telling people that homosexuality is bad. It may be, but there is one more part at the end, because when the young woman learned that her husband has killed the old lady, she cried and said "You killed my husband." And she wouldn’t stop crying.
I read a story in it today. It’s an old inuit tale that goes something like this.
Once there was an old woman who fell in love with her son’s wife. One day while here son was out hunting she made herself a penis out of sealbones and skin, hung it around her waist and went over to show her son’s wife, who liked it and they slept together. The old woman started hunting for the girl. The wife’s husband came back from hunting one day and saw that there where already seals in front of the igloo. His wife didn’t tell him anything. So the husband hide out and waited for whoever was leaving these seals behind to come over. Then he saw his mother coming up with a big hooded seal on her Kayak. This is where my understanding of the story gets tricky, because I think that it says that only the man and his mother where capable of killing hooded seals. Anyway, the old woman got out and started sweet talking her son’s wife, but her son killed her and told his wife that they have to leave because they are in a cursed place.
Reading that, it is easy to imagine that this is just some story telling people that homosexuality is bad. It may be, but there is one more part at the end, because when the young woman learned that her husband has killed the old lady, she cried and said "You killed my husband." And she wouldn’t stop crying.
2 comments:
Hmm...interesting, I think, but I'm thoroughly confused...
Yeah, I just found it very thought provoking and disturbing on some level, what with the bit at the end.
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