40 its own life where it is described that squirrels have family and children to be
loved. In the end, by putting the boy in a painful ritual, both nature and man get the best result in the story. The chieftain gets back his people and the boy
does not only get lesson about life but also then become a shaman for the good of Tsimshian people.
3. How Selfishness was Rewarded
Alaska people have thousands of stories that describe how man and nature try to get along each other. And each story is served in an interesting variety to
readers. It happens in the story of How Selfishness was Rewarded where another different perspective of nature is offered in the story.
A young warrior came to the coast with his wife and mother one summer and settled in the place where Sitka
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stands now. It was a summer of hardship for the family because the fish stayed away and the game had
moved far away over the mountains. The warrior set traps and laid nets in the water and wandered many miles hunting for food, but he found nothing.
http:www.americanfolklore.netfolktalesak1.html The statement above explains how the characters face starvation as their
biggest problem during summer. The coast is empty and hunting seems very difficult to do for getting disappointed results. The people start losing energy
and strength but the warrior’s wife seems having stable power for not losing any vigor on each miserable day. So, what is the secret beyond the healthy
girl? Apparently, this girl uses magic spell to get fish and she eats them while
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According to http:id.wikipedia.orgwikiSitka,_Alaska
; Sitka is a city in Alaska located in the west coast of Baranof island, Pacific Ocean. It is the forth biggest city in Alaska and
the biggest city in America measured from its wide territory.
41 everybody sleeps tight at night. A conflict starts to emerge when the warrior’s
mother sees what the girl does at night: The starving old mother saw her son’s wife crouched near the fire and she
heard the girl eagerly chewing the hot fish. The old mother cried out for her son’s wife to give her a morsel, but the girl was selfish and told the old
woman that the fish she smelled was just a dream. When the old mother begged for just a single bite of fish, the girl denied her request.
This girl acts very selfish towards her family who are suffered from terrible hunger. She puts herself in a high priority and she does not care about what
happens in her surroundings. The spell she uses is only for her own good. Luckily, the warrior knows what to do as a plan after hearing what the old
mother tells about what she saw. He tries to find out about what his wife does every night. When his wife wakes up and does her routine collecting and
cooking fish for herself, the warrior follows his wife’s movement and when the spell is used he tries to memorize the words, “Unbeknownst to her, the
warrior had followed his wife. He took care to memorize the strange words of his wife’s spell, and then slipped quickly back to the lodge and into his
blankets before she returned.” Different from the previous two stories, How Selfishness was Reward
shows a different case about man’s action towards nature. It is not harmed as what happened in The Ptarmigan Story and it is also not destroyed
indiscriminately as what told in The squirrel Shaman. The point of this story is how nature is taken for its advantages by one person and it is used selfishly
over the suffering that other people have. So, when this young girl realizes that her shameful behavior has been
42 discovered, she decides to escape to the woods. Things get worse when her
husband follows her and keeps calling out her name. She is afraid of her husband’s wrath. And suddenly, something strange happens to her:
…she felt her body growing smaller and smaller. She gasped in fear as she realized that the magic she had used so selfishly was turning against her in
punishment for the crimes she had committed against her starving family. She felt feathers sprouting from her arms and face, and when she cried out,
the only sound she could make was a soft hooting noise.
She is then changed into an owl. The spell she has been using now turns against her because of her selfishness. Transformation
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into an animal figure is her punishment.
This story shows how nature tries to teach man for being fair to others instead of being selfish. The girl in the story takes nature as something good
for herself only while her family holds their hunger everyday. The selfishness has taken over her completely. The disrespect she shows to the old mother and
the lie she keeps from her husband have proven that she becomes careless and heartless to people around her. The writer sees the transformation of the girl as
a punishment in the form of a curse where nature pays for what she has done into life time learning. The transformation itself also has a positive function
for people to learn that nature keeps it promise for those who mistreat or violate to it. So, once again, nature has shown its powerful rage in a different
way towards man’s action.
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Based on the Amazing Native American History, the transformation itself firstly happened in Inuit legend. It was known that Sedna as a young woman acted against her father’s
wishes. She married a dog and caused a huge of anger to her father. Feeling betrayed, her father decided to sacrifice Sedna into the sea. Her fingers were cut off and it is believed that when each
finger fell into the water, it was transformed into sea creatures such as whales, seals and walruses.
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4. Crow Brings the Daylight
