A sourced illustration has not yet been added. This gap is included in the coverage record.
Overview
A widow and her daughter remain behind when wealthy villagers abandon a settlement during famine. Salmon are visible in a brook, but the women cannot catch them and wait for the fish to ascend close enough to club. While the mother is away, a tall young man visits the starving daughter and marries her. He returns that night and begins teaching the household a new means of fishing.
He has the mother gather nettles, prepares their fibres and teaches her to spin thread. He makes a mesh stick, nets the thread and adds a cedar-bark line and wooden floats. The daughter accompanies him fishing at night; their catches fill successive smoking and storage houses. His work combines instruction with the women’s labour rather than producing food from nothing. Tate supplies notes distinguishing the old nets’ top lines and the sizes of salmon and hide bundles.
The husband says that compassion brought him to teach them, then prepares to return home. His wife chooses to accompany him. At his house a Mouse Woman identifies him as Spider and warns the woman to keep eating her own food: eating the household’s food would turn her into a spider. The warning also speaks of death, and the narrative does not explain this tension by inventing a second transformation or punishment.
Spider continues teaching his wife different kinds of netting. She visits her mother the following summer and passes on what she has learned. Meanwhile, the mother distributes and sells the abundant dried salmon and becomes wealthy, though she initially conceals the net itself. The story closes by explaining how people learned net making. Its helpful animal husband remains distinct from a generic dangerous spider spirit.
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 19, The Spider and the Widow’s Daughter, complete pp. 158–160, ending before story 20 on p. 161; Tate’s technical footnotes and collection preface pp. 31–32.
In the literature
“It is the Spider.”
19. The Spider and the Widow’s Daughter, complete pp.158–160; brief prose p.160 · Franz Boas, based on Henry W.Tate’s free interlinear rendering, Preface31
A widow and daughter survive abandonment during famine. A young man marries the daughter, provides fishing nets and fills their storehouses. He leaves with his wife, while the widow returns to the village and shares the salmon, becoming wealthy. At the husband’s home, Mouse Woman identifies him as Spider and warns of a change into Spider form associated with his people’s food. The wife returns the following summer to teach her mother what she has learned, and the account closes as an origin of net-making.
Selected bibliography
Documented works and useful reading. This is not a list of every appearance.
- 01
Tsimshian Mythology
Story 19, The Spider and the Widow’s Daughter, complete pp. 158–160, ending before story 20 on p. 161; Tate’s technical footnotes and collection preface pp. 31–32.
- 02
Tsimshian Mythology — 19. The Spider and the Widow’s Daughter, complete pp.158–160
Washington: Government Printing Office,1916; Thirty-first Annual Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology,1909–1910. Complete selected English narrative(s) and attached technical footnotes read in retained OCR. Original selected opening/identity/ending pages visually checked. Preface31–32 translation provenance independently inspected. Comparative chapters not included in this reading claim.
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.
Tsimshian Mythology — 19. The Spider and the Widow’s Daughter, complete pp.158–160
Washington: Government Printing Office,1916; Thirty-first Annual Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology,1909–1910. Complete selected English narrative(s) and attached technical footnotes read in retained OCR. Original selected opening/identity/ending pages visually checked. Preface31–32 translation provenance independently inspected. Comparative chapters not included in this reading claim.
- A widow and daughter survive abandonment during famine. A young man marries the daughter, provides fishing nets and fills their storehouses. He leaves with his wife, while the widow returns to the village and shares the salmon, becoming wealthy. At the husband’s home, Mouse Woman identifies him as Spider and warns of a change into Spider form associated with his people’s food. The wife returns the following summer to teach her mother what she has learned, and the account closes as an origin of net-making.
19. The Spider and the Widow’s Daughter, complete pp.158–160
No whole volume or independent Tsimshian translation claimed; no songs, prayers, net-making procedures, food processing or ritual preparation reproduced.
References
Sources supporting this profile. Linked pages have their own scope and editorial standards.
Image credits
A sourced illustration has not yet been added. This gap is included in the coverage record.