Reading Notes, Week 11, The Wife Who Lied, Part B.

 

The Wife Who Lied, Eskimo Folk-Tales by Knud Rasmussen:

• Navaránâpaluk wanted to cause a feud between her husband's people and her kinfolk, so she "put mittens on her feet instead of boots. And this she did in order to make it appear that her husband's people had dealt ill by her."
• No described motivation why she did so? Maybe she simply wished to return home, and thought the desolation of her husband's people would see to that.
• Such a slight couldn't be ignored because protective clothing in the Arctic weather is quite literally necessary to live. Naturally, mittens would not substitute adequately for missing boots.
• The almost-slaughter of all the people, truthfully, gains nothing for the wife since it will be obvious that she isn't among the dead women when the men return.

Women's traditional caribou skin outfit with amauti parka, trousers, mitts and
footed stockings. The back of the parka has an amaut or pouch for carrying a baby.
(Wikipedia Commons)

• Lies never end well for the one telling them, especially not when such a lie has led to the death of many women and children. 
• "At last, when they were no more left, they chose themselves wives from among the widows, and bore them off to their own place. But two of them took Navaránâpaluk and hurried off with her. And she, thinking that both wished to have her to wife, cried out: "Which is it to be? Which is it to be?" The men laughed, and made no answer, but ran on with her. Then suddenly they cut through both her arms with their knives. And soon she fell, and the blood went from her, and she died. This fate they meted out to her because she lied."
• The morale of the story is to not lie because more people suffer because of it, and there's a possibility that you'll die!