Storytelling Week 9: The Lethal Lie

“I do not understand,” my husband’s voice is soft and pained. I open my eyes and struggle to focus on his face. He is kneeling beside me where I lay on the cold snow. “I loved you as my wife. My people took you in. And you betrayed us. You have shamed my name and killed so many innocents with your false words.”

            He is right. But this was not supposed to happen.

            I did not mean for people to die. All I wanted was to move back home, to live with my family again. I never wanted to be married off to some stranger from a different tribe. I never wanted to leave my parents, my friends. I never wanted any of this. But it is too late. It is too late for my family. It is too late for me. We are all dead.

            I had to lie. It was the only way my people would ever take me back after being married off. I had to tell them falsely that my husband’s tribe had greatly mistreated me. Barbarians, I said. Monsters, I called them. My words began a war. My words killed.

            When my people set off to fight the other tribe, I should have told them that I was lying. But then they might have killed me. I told myself then that things would not be so bad, that the tribes would fight a while and soon forget their quarrel.

            I never thought that my people would murder innocent women. But that is just what they did. They ransacked the village while the men were away and killed every woman they saw. The village I once lived in with my husband. I knew those women. They welcomed me with open arms. They treated me like family. And now…now they are all dead. Just like I will be.

            My father is dead. And my brothers, and cousins…slaughtered by my husband’s tribe, just like all the men from my village. What could my people expect after the brutality they displayed on my behalf? At least my husband’s tribe spared the women’s lives. Now the women of my tribe will serve as replacement wives for the ones my people robbed of life. All except me.

            Even now, the life drains out of me. The snow around me darkens with crimson. The world is fading. I wish I could make this right. I wish I could take back my lie. I wish…

            “I do not understand,” my husband repeats, louder this time. He is angry now. That is good. Anger will lessen his sadness. “Why did you cause such tragedy?” he yells.

            I cannot answer. I have no strength left in me to speak. And what would I say if I did? There is no excuse for what I have done, for this unfortunate chain of events that led to so many deaths. Including my own.     

(Community of Igloos by Charles Francis Hall, 1865)

Author's Note. This story is based off of The Wife Who Lied from the Eskimo Folk Tales Unit. In the original story, there is a woman who is married off to a man in a different tribe. Once when she goes to visit her people, she leads them to believe that she has been mistreated by her husband's tribe. Her people decide to go to war with the other tribe and end up killing nearly all the women of that tribe while the men are away. Once the men come home and find their women murdered, they set out to confront the other tribe and kill all the men in that tribe while taking the women for wives. The woman who lied is taken away by two men and asks which she will be married to, but the men only laugh and cut off her arms because they knew that she was the cause of all this tragedy. She bleeds to death.

When I read this story, I wondered what the wife's motivation was for lying and causing such horrible things to happen. I tried to write my story to give more perspective on why she allowed people to die from her false accusations. In my story, the woman just wanted to live with her family again and things got out of hand. Still, she selfishly tried to protect herself from the repercussions of her lie and let innocents die because of her. I also added the husband in this story because I'm sure he would have had a hard time trying to understand why his wife would do such a thing.

Bibliography: The Wife Who Lied from Eskimo Folk-Tales by Knud Rasmussen (1921)