Labret woman and Evening Sky (Moses’s account)

Overview

Moses’s story calls its central woman She-who-has-a-labret-on-one-side. She enters a settlement looking impoverished and covered in what appear to be scabs. People offer her salmon backs, which she refuses. A prince’s companions describe her as enslaved and arrange for her to sit beside him. After the chieftainess serves them a proper meal, the visitor places one of her apparent scabs in the dish as a gift. It proves to be a large abalone shell. Further gifts overturn the household’s first judgment of her status.

A visiting woman asks for her by name and promises abundant provisions for her marriage. Canoes arrive through river fog, bringing food, hides and copper. The narrative names the bride’s mother Evening Sky and calls her a supernatural being who cannot be seen, living with her people far from ordinary settlements. It does not explain how this invisibility relates to the earlier visible visitor; their identities should not be silently collapsed. The mother’s gifts enable the prince to distribute wealth and become an important chief.

The prince later takes additional wives and repeatedly travels to Chilkat without his first wife. She instead supplies his disparaged brother with red paint to trade there for weasel skins. His successful trading contrasts with the prince’s mockery. She then washes the brother in four deep pools, transforming his appearance, and marries him. Evening Sky again provides wealth, now for this second household.

The story closes with the new husband wearing weasel-skin garments decorated with abalone and distributing gifts at a gathering. The former husband is ashamed as his brother becomes a great chief. The women’s decisions and resources drive this reversal; the tale is not simply about a passive beautiful bride. Its wealth includes enslaved people as well as food and valued objects, a feature of the narrated social order retained without endorsement.

The complete account is attributed to Moses in Boas’s 1902 Nass River collection, recorded at Kinkolith in 1894. Its named supernatural mother and abalone-bearing daughter remain together here because the mother’s gifts are integral to the daughter’s marriages and the story gives her no independent adventure.

Origins & earliest records

Franz Boas, Tsimshian Texts, Bureau of American Ethnology Bulletin 27 (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1902). Recorded at Kinkolith, at the Nass River’s mouth, in November–December 1894. Boas’s introduction, dated June 1899, names Philip, Moses, Chief Mountain and Moody as the collection’s narrators. The volume prints the language it calls Nîsqa’E alongside English translation; individual story headings identify their tellers.

Records & interpretation

Complete English She-who-has-a-labret-on-one-side, pp.188–199, including final distribution, read with Moses heading and introduction p.5. Evening Sky’s asserted invisibility is retained without equating her automatically with the earlier visitor.

Selected bibliography

Documented works and useful reading. This is not a list of every appearance.

1. 01

   Tsimshian Texts: Nass River Dialect

   Moses, teller; Franz Boas, recorder and translator · 1902

   She-who-has-a-labret-on-one-side, complete pp.188–199; named Moses heading and introduction p.5.

Family & connections

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References

Sources supporting this profile. Linked pages have their own scope and editorial standards.

1. Primary textBoas 1902 original Nass River collectionResearch access: 2026-10-05

Image credits

A sourced illustration has not yet been added. This gap is included in the coverage record.