The Dead Wife, by Peta Andersen page 2/2
A sojourn in the wild
Once upon a time, there were a man and his wife who lived in the forest, very far from the rest of the tribe. Very often they spent the day in hunting together, but after a while the wife found that she had so many things to do that she was obliged to stay at home; so he went alone, though he found that when his wife was not with him he never had any luck…
…[After the wife's resurrection] "It is now two years since you died. Let us now go back to our tribe. Then you will be well, and I can touch you."
In the first section of the story, it is implied that the husband and wife have always lived away from their tribe. In the latter part, however, the husband's speech suggests that this is not the case. My recent reading does not yield a possible reason for the couple's prolonged sojourn in the wilds, though I am inclined to think though it is a little unusual, it's somewhat akin to the European "A long time ago in a faraway land…" providing an adequate setting for the supernatural element of the story for, as we know by the wife's initial words to her husband,
"The Great Spirit felt sorry for you, because you would not be comforted, so he let me come back to you, but you must not stretch out your hand to touch me till we have seen the rest of our people. If you do, I shall die,"
It could not take place in the presence of the rest of the tribe. Although not always the case, the magic only occurring in the lack of observers (aside from those directly acted upon) is quite common.
A tale of love and marriage or a tale of disobedience?
So he made haste, and opened the door quickly, and instead of the wooden doll, his wife sat in front of the fire.
Then she spoke to him and said, "The Great Spirit felt sorry for you, because you would not be comforted, so he let me come back to you, but you must not stretch out your hand to touch me till we have seen the rest of our people. If you do, I shall die."
Haven't we all wished to have a loved one back? Bargained, begged, and cajoled for the Great Spirit, God, the Universe, to return someone to our earthly grasp? And, if we were to be granted such a wish, wouldn't we be eager to touch said loved one, to reassure ourselves that they were, in fact, real? From the moment the wife dies, we know that she will be restored. From the moment she is restored, we know there will be a condition. From the moment we read the condition, we know the husband will break it. But why is the husband, so close to being able to hold his wife without penalty, unable to resist touching her? And, moreover, why do the couple remain in the wilds for two years after her return, thereby actively allowing the Great Spirit's condition to hang over their heads?
The fairy tale condition, like the myth condition, is a well-known convention. Like fairy tales in which the hero or heroine must befriend an old man/woman/animal &c., or those where the youngest sibling succeeds, The Dead Wife is reliant upon the reader's acceptance of a particular world view—not only must he or she agree to the existence of a Great Spirit, but also to the suspension of what he or she may, in the real world, consider common sense.
Such acceptance and agreement to the fairy tale world can also be seen as a way of creating distance for the reader, of putting the story, its truth an disturbing elements, amongst other things, at arms' length. In the case of The Dead Wife, it's also possible to take the tale as a mixture of cautionary elements (though this seems something of a stretch) and a pattern of grieving. If we allow for the tale to be mostly metaphorical and treat it from a psychological perspective, it is easy to see the story as that of a husband unwilling to accept loss until he is forced to by returning to his people—it is at this moment, only a day's journey away, that the man fails, is left with the wooden doll, and the fiction is ended.
In The Yellow Fairy Book, Andrew Lang notes that The Dead Wife is an Iroquois tale; he gives no further detail. At the time of publication, the Iroquois nation most likely consisted of six tribes, also known as the Six Nations: Cayuga; Mohawk; Oneida; Onondaga; Seneca; and Tuscarora peoples. Each of these groups has its own mythology and folklore in relation to the dead and spiritual beliefs vary, so it can be difficult to quantify and discuss exactitudes in the context of The Dead Wife. It's also important to note that the current beliefs of the groups within the Iroquois nation may be different to those of the past, and that the European and American understanding of both present and past sets of beliefs may be incomplete.
References:
Beauchamp, W. M. "Iroquois Women," The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 13, No. 49, (Apr. - Jun., 1900), pp. 81-91.
Online version kindly provided by JSTOR at http://www.jstor.org/stable/533798
Boas, Franz. "Mythology and Folk-Tales of the North American Indians," The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 27, No. 106, (Oct. - Dec., 1914), pp. 374-410.
Online version kindly provided by JSTOR at http://www.jstor.org/stable/534740
Dixon, Roland B. "The Mythology of the Central and Eastern Algonkins ," The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 22, No. 83, (Jan. - Mar., 1909), pp. 1-9 .
Online version kindly provided by JSTOR at http://www.jstor.org/stable/534304
Gayton, A. H. "The Orpheus Myth in North America," The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 48, No. 189, (Jul. - Sep., 1935), pp. 263-293.
Online version kindly provided by JSTOR at http://www.jstor.org/stable/535272
Randle, Martha Champion. "Psychological Types from Iroquois Folktales," The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 65, No. 255, (Jan. - Mar., 1952), pp. 13-21.
Online version kindly provided by JSTOR at http://www.jstor.org/stable/536283
Roufs, Tim and James, Bernard J. "Myth in Method: More on Ojibwa Culture ," Current Anthropology, Vol. 15, No. 3, (Sep., 1974), pp. 307-310.
Online version kindly provided by JSTOR at http://www.jstor.org/stable/2740908
White, Bruce M. "The Woman Who Married a Beaver: Trade Patterns and Gender Roles in the Ojibwa Fur Trade," Ethnohistory, Vol. 46, No. 1, (Winter, 1999), pp. 109-147.
Online version kindly provided by JSTOR at http://www.jstor.org/stable/483430