Reading Notes: Native American Marriage Tales Unit- Reading A: The Rolling Head

Snake. Photo by Sugar Monster

• Story Summary: This story was very similar to stories I have previously read in other units. This story is about a family who keeps to themselves. There was a man, woman, and two children. Every time the man went out hunting, he would paint his wife's face and body before he went out hunting. The wife, went out to the same stream, every time. She would take off all of her clothes as if to bath, and then she would call for a snake. When the snake appeared, he would tell her to come to him since her husband was away. Everyday, her husband would return with meat for his family to eat, and he would wonder what happened to the paint. One day, he asked the wife where the paint had went, and she told him she had bathed in the lake. Curious as to why, the husband set out the next day, performing the same ritual as to go to a hunt, but instead, he followed his wife to the lake. When he saw the women, with the snake wrapped around her, he was angered and jumped on the snake and killed it. He then killed his wife and cut her up and took her back to her meat back for the children to eat. The children unknowingly ate their mother. The father than told the children to tell their mother when she returned that he went out to fetch meat he had tied up in a tree. The father then left. The younger daughter said that their mother was merely teasing them by not returning and the older daughter then told her not to speak ill of their mother. Then the mother's head came rolling to the daughters and said I am very sorry my daughters have eaten me up. The two daughters, terrified by this sight ran, but the head kept following. Eventually, the elder daughter drew a line in the dirt so the head would not cross. The daughters were then hungry and saw a deer, they merely looked at it and it struck the ground as it had been shot. They then ate the deer. Someone was very kind to the girls and they were well looked after. Two large panther and two large black bears guarded the girls. A starving village had heard of the two girls that had plenty of food and went the them in hope of them sharing. They children welcomed the people in. When all the people had left, only the girl's father remained. Because he had left them, the girls told one of the black bears to kill him, so it did. 
• My Idea: My idea is to change the story to either one of the girl's perspectives or even to the father's. Maybe I could even put the story in the mother's perspective, which would tell us a lot of things we do not know, such as why she called the snake and continued to visit him. Was her husband abusive? What did the paintings he did on her body mean? Was she not happy? Was she the force that protected the girls? Was her absence ever revealed to the girls? There are alot of detail I could fill in in this story.
• Bibliography: Thompson, Sith. Tales of the North American Indian's. Native American Marriage Tales Unit. The Rolling Head. 1929.