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

Overview

In Boas’s Kamloops account, Lynx secretly causes a guarded young woman’s pregnancy through bodily fluid reaching her mouth. The narrative reports an involuntary supernatural conception, not a consensual courtship. When her son is four, the household stages an archery test to identify his father. Only Lynx, depicted as an old man with weak sight, hits the target. The community acknowledges him as the woman’s husband but then beats him severely, extinguishes the fires and abandons the family.

The woman’s grandmother, Magpie, quietly leaves a live coal and food in a shell. The shell calls to the woman, who finds it and makes a fire. The food increases during cooking. After she and the boy eat, she steps over the injured Lynx four times and restores his health, then repairs the remaining injury to his face. He is described as wounded, not expressly killed and resurrected.

Lynx hunts successfully and causes deep snow that prevents the people who abandoned them from taking game. His wife preserves abundant meat, reserving the best pieces for Magpie and poorer remains for the others. Magpie discovers the boy playing with a ball of deer fat and, overcome by hunger, eats it. Lynx invites her in and feeds her; food carried back to her own household eventually reveals their prosperity to Raven.

All the people return. Lynx distributes the stores prepared for each and then hunts for them, so the story ends with renewed provisioning rather than their extermination. Its household joins an unnamed human woman, an animal-person husband, their son and the woman’s explicitly identified grandmother. It does not say that the son becomes a lynx or that this is a biological origin of lynxes.

Unusual conception and archery recognitionWife restores severe injuriesMagpie grandmother supplies hidden fireControls snow and hunting abundance
01

Origins & earliest records

Boas1895, Indianische Sagen von der Nord-Pacifischen Küste Amerikas, Shuswap collection at Kamloops, I no3, Der Luchs und das Mädchen,9–11. The preface describes an unnamed French-Indigenous intermediary; no individual narrator is supplied here.

02

Records & interpretation

Complete German tale read, with original printed9–13 checked at the relevant boundaries. Narrative transformations and kinship remain source-specific; neither a historical incident nor a universal account of the animal species is asserted.

In the literature

“Sie gebar einen Knaben.”
Franz Boas · Indianische Sagen von der Nord-Pacifischen Küste Amerikas
I. Shushwap, Kamloops; 3. Der Luchs und das Mädchen, complete pp.9–11; brief German narrative excerpt p.9 · German witness by Boas; Shushwap recording mediated through an unnamed French-Indigenous intermediary; no independent translation claimed

A woman who has rejected suitors becomes pregnant after contact with Lynx’s urine and bears a boy. The boy’s arrow contest identifies Lynx as father. After the village abandons the household, the woman’s grandmother, called Elster in the German text, has secretly left food and a coal. The woman restores injured Lynx, whose successful hunting later feeds the returning community.

Selected bibliography

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

  1. 01

    Indianische Sagen von der Nord-Pacifischen Küste Amerikas

    Franz Boas; Kamloops Shuswap narrator not individually named · 1895

    I no3, Der Luchs und das Mädchen,9–11, complete account; preface gives the collection intermediary, not an individual teller name.

  2. 02

    Indianische Sagen von der Nord-Pacifischen Küste Amerikas — I. Shushwap, Kamloops; 3. Der Luchs und das Mädchen, complete pp.9–11

    Franz Boas · 1895

    Berlin: A. Asher & Co.,1895; actual title-page imprint visually checked in retained original microform PDF. German collected narrative, not an independent modern translation.

Family & connections

A source-supported family tree or inspiration record has not yet been compiled for this profile. Related reading below indicates a connection in subject matter, not a proven lineage or creative influence.

Located primary passages

Specific passages supporting details in this entry, grouped by their published witness.

Indianische Sagen von der Nord-Pacifischen Küste Amerikas — I. Shushwap, Kamloops; 3. Der Luchs und das Mädchen, complete pp.9–11

Berlin: A. Asher & Co.,1895; actual title-page imprint visually checked in retained original microform PDF. German collected narrative, not an independent modern translation.

  1. A woman who has rejected suitors becomes pregnant after contact with Lynx’s urine and bears a boy. The boy’s arrow contest identifies Lynx as father. After the village abandons the household, the woman’s grandmother, called Elster in the German text, has secretly left food and a coal. The woman restores injured Lynx, whose successful hunting later feeds the returning community.

    I. Shushwap, Kamloops; 3. Der Luchs und das Mädchen, complete pp.9–11

No complete book, original performance or original-language transcript inspected; no direct Shushwap-to-German translation claimed. Preface mentions earlier publications that were not separately inspected.

References

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

  1. Primary textOriginal Boas1895 collected volumeResearch access: 2026-10-05

Image credits

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

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