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The Man with the Wooden Wife
BIG-WINGS WAS a most
ambitious young hunter of the Tlingit nation in northern British Columbia.
He was a great dreamer. His dream was to possess the best and most
beautiful wife, to become the first trapper in his tribe and to rise to
the front rank in his clan, that of the Beaver. Yet his marriage was a
failure and his life became a nightmare. The lovely princess whom he
wedded with great ceremony turned into a shrew: lazy, grouchy and
cantankerous.
One evening he found his
house empty and the fireplace in cold ashes. Where was his wife? Was she
frolicking without him? Without a wink, he waited the whole night long,
trying to control his temper. When she reappeared the next day, he lashed
out at her. Terror-struck, howling, she ran away, never to come back. As
for him … he relapsed into dreams.
In his solitude he struck
upon an idea: he would bring to life the perfect wife. So he chose a fine
piece of red cedar, fragrant and well-seasoned. With his sharp stone
hatchet he cut and hewed it. Under his skilled hands the wood slowly
assumed a human form, the graceful shape of the woman of his dreams.
Day after day he laboured.
He chiseled the surface with beaver incisors. He polished the curves with
the rough skin of a shark. His motions became caresses. From his hands
grew a beautiful young woman who smiled at him with her alluring mask of a
Haida siren. Her large dark eyes were as round as the full moon, her
eyebrows as gracefully arched as its first crescent. Her black hair in two
heavy tresses set off smooth, youthful cheeks. And her delicately chiseled
lips, painted with red ochre, seemed to whisper of love.
Tenderly, Big-Wings held
her perfect hands to render them skilled in a woman’s work of weaving
and embroidery. Her wrists and nimble fingers would spin the threads of
the inner cedar bark and the wool of the mountain goat into a robe on the
Chilkat loom. When not tending the cooking pot full of meat and dainties,
he mused, she would weave a gorgeous cape. He would don it at the
forthcoming festival, where chiefs would be elevated in the midst of
dances and traditional chants. Then, at last, he would be all things: a
chief, a great trapper and a happily married man.
Every day the wooden body,
clad now in tanned moose skin, seemed more and more to come to life under
his warm breath. He felt himself inspired with a strange magic. He would
exclaim, "Come along, come along, my dear Sudahl!" And she would
turn her head slightly towards him with a faint smile.
Each evening when the time
came for the pot to boil, he asked, "My wife, is the supper
ready?" As she remained dumb, he answered for her, "Yes, my
husband, it will soon be ready. A little patience, I pray!" Then he
prepared the sliced beaver tail, the well-toasted moose steak and the
dried wild fruits soaked in lukewarm water, all sweetened with candlefish
oil. "Here it is, my dear!" the wooden wife seemed to say.
"Is my husband satisfied? "
Thus the dreamer lived with
the woman of his creation. They were a perfect pair.
But the strange behaviour
of Big-Wings puzzled his tribesmen. Never did he leave his lodge but for
the forest, ever alone and silent. They wondered, "Will he ever
remarry?" Busybodies lurked and listened outside his cabin and
thought they heard voices inside.
Finally, two marriageable
girls, who would have liked Big-Wings for themselves, hid one evening in
the bushes near his home. Soon he returned, heavily laden from the hunt.
Hardly had he stepped inside when voices came to their ears. They tiptoed
closer, peeked through a knothole in the plank wall, and beheld a strange
sight. Big-Wings talked to a woman at the loom: "Sudahl, my dear
wife!" "My husband, supper is ready." Who would believe it?
After supper, the hunter
fell on his couch in a corner. One of the two girl spies raced to the
village to break the news. But the other waited, her eye to the knothole.
Everything grew quiet inside, while the moon cast a pale light everywhere.
Gently, cautiously, she entered the lodge and touched the young woman
still sitting at the loom. Why! She was only wood! Vindictively she seized
the statue, flung it into the nearest corner and slipped away.
Meanwhile, the great
dreamer had a vision. His wooden wife had come to life, and she was warm
flesh and blood. She rested her head on his shoulder, and her red lips
sought his. In a trance he yielded himself to her caresses. Here at last
was his perfect love fulfilled.
The vision faded and
daylight came. The hunter blinked and sat up happily.
But he was alone and his
lodge was upset. His dream wife had vanished. The threads of the loom were
tangled and broken. The weaver of his dreams was crumpled in a corner,
lifeless and disheveled.
With a cry he fell on his
knees at her side and tried to lift her from the ground. With kisses and
tears and words of love he tried to restore her to life. All in vain! The
charm was broken. Already the feet of his beloved had driven roots into
the soil and had changed into saplings – two young green cedars. Each
day they grew until they were towering trees, the like of which the people
of the Tlingit had never seen. Around them, more cedars rose and became
the West Coast forests that sheltered the Tlingit and people of many other
tribes.
Big-Wings, a broken man,
was never quite the same. But his dream took root in him. Year after year,
as the seasons cloaked the cedars in sunshine and snow, the hunter drifted
among them, always alone, always searching for his dream.
Who knows, perhaps one day
his loving Sudahl would return....
Illustration
by Art Price
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Recorded
by the esteemed Canadian anthropologist and folklorist Marius Barbeau, the
legend "The Man with the Wooden Wife" first appeared in the
December 1959 issue of the Imperial Oil Review.