Innu legend comes to life in Labrador Institute book
The book tells the story of a man and the several different animals that approach him for marriage. He agrees to each proposal but every time he finds something wrong with the prospective spouse. Finally he marries the beaver and they go on to have children. Eventually, the man’s family begin to look for him. They destroy the beaver lodge and take the man home with them. In the end he is able to rejoin his beaver family.
Author Jose Mailhot first recorded the story in the 1960s and provided LI with permission to use her recording.
“We wanted to produce books for children in the Aboriginal languages of Labrador and to use stories from their own communities,” said Dr. MacDonald. The Labrador Institute published a book a couple of years ago based on an Inuit legend.
It is important from a cultural perspective to retell a favorite legend in two languages, and what I can see of the illustrations by Cynthia Colosimo and Jolene Ashina looks amazing. But you can imagine how much I want to get my hot little hands on a copy. Maybe one for the mayor who has been ‘married to beavers’ for nearly a decade now.
In case you’re mistakenly thinking of my dog, here’s a short introduction to the Labrador Institute.
Apparently, beaver were in hot demand by both sexes in folklore. Because an Ojibwa legend tells the story of a woman who married a beaver, saying:
The woman who married a beaver: Trade patterns and gender roles in the fur trade.
This is where things really get interesting:
So the beaver continues to come back to the house with all the things used to kill them. And they get richer and richer. And even though they’re constantly killed they never really die. And remain very fond of these people who enrich them.
So after her unique experience the woman reveals that you should never speak ILL of the beaver, or you won’t be able to catch any. But if you speak well of them you will have better luck. Which isn’t so hard to understand when you think about the elaborate reciprocal contracts natives kept with the animals they ate, giving thanks and honoring them for their contribution. The article this is appears in goes on to discuss a very fascinating look at gender and female contribution in the fur trade, how women often played an intermediary role in transactions, which you might enjoy reading as much as I did.
Mostly though, I just wanted to marry a beaver. Shh, don’t tell Jon.
