Mouse lover and his children (Tate’s account)

Overview

At Prairie Town after the narrative’s flood, a chief closely guards his daughter Su-da°l and refuses her suitors. A young man nevertheless visits her at night. Watching him depart before dawn, she sees him become a mouse and escape through a knot-hole. When she becomes pregnant and will not identify the father, her own father sets her adrift in a sealed box with valuable possessions. The nocturnal lover is not identified with the separate recurring adviser Mouse Woman.

The box reaches the islands called Queen Charlotte Islands in the edition, now Haida Gwaii. A mourning couple opens it: many mice escape before they discover the living princess. They receive her as their lost daughter returned, give her that daughter’s name, and arrange a marriage to their nephew. The narrator later identifies the escaped mice as her children by the Mouse lover. The couple’s welcome does not require treating her as literally the same person as their deceased child.

Her subsequent human children suffer an insult concerning their unknown ancestry. Their mother sends them across the sea and up the Skeena to her original family, whose surviving relatives recognise their names. This second group is distinct from the mouse children. Left sorrowful on the islands, she meets young people in the forest who call her mother and bring her to their populous town. They explain that they are the mice cast away with her and offer to care for her. They initially forbid her human husband from joining them.

When that husband eventually finds her, the mouse children threaten him, but she intercedes. They allow him four days among them to learn their songs and dances. Chief Mouse then sends him home with dance objects and a warning against harming island mice, grounding their claim to noble status in their mother’s family. Four days later the woman returns too and teaches the songs. The text connects this exchange with dances spreading among island villages. This is Tate’s narrative account of cultural transmission, not independent proof that all Haida dances share one origin or that the human children were mice in disguise.

Origins & earliest records

Franz Boas, Tsimshian Mythology, based on texts recorded by Henry W. Tate, published in 1916 in the Bureau of American Ethnology’s thirty-first report for 1909–1910. Boas translated Tate’s free interlinear English renderings of his Tsimshian texts. The preface notes Tate’s editorial choices and some influence from published collections; the 1916 volume omits the original-language text.

Records & interpretation

Story 33, The Princess and the Mouse, complete pp. 232–238; preface pp. 31–32.

Selected bibliography

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

1. 01

   Tsimshian Mythology

   Henry W. Tate, recorder; Franz Boas, translator and editor · 1916

   Story 33, The Princess and the Mouse, complete pp. 232–238; preface pp. 31–32.

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.

References

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

1. Primary textBoas/Tate 1916: The Princess and the MouseResearch access: 2026-10-05

Image credits

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