The Stolen Wife (Folktale)

Author: Traditional Tewa

Time Period: 1001 CE–1500 CE; 1950 CE–2000 CE

Country or Culture: North America

Genre: Folktale

Overview

A classic tale among the Tewa-speaking Pueblo American Indians, “The Stolen Wife” tells of the kidnapping and rescue of White Corn, the wife of a hunter. Associating the wife with corn, the story ostensibly explains the flourishing of the white corn crop in San Juan and thus mythologizes the disruption and return of social and agricultural harmony. Anthropologist Alfonso Ortiz translated and included the story in the 1984 collection American Indian Myths and Legends. This and other anthologies reflect the tale’s popularity and demonstrate the profound significance of corn for the Tewa Pueblo people in the American Southwest.

The story describes how a hunter named Tiny Flower loses his wife, White Corn, after she goes to collect water at a lake. There, she finds a magic stick belonging to the powerful governor of the Yellow Kachina people, a rain and thunder deity who desires the beautiful White Corn. After the governor and the wife engage in a flirtatious chase around the lake, he invites her to his home on the top of Flint-Covered Mountain. She agrees to go but then realizes upon arrival that she has been kidnapped. Aggrieved over his wife’s absence, Tiny Flower is instructed by his grandfather to visit Grandmother Spider. Grandmother Spider reveals the location of White Corn and provides the hunter with a medicine stick, a pipe, tobacco, and instructions on how to use the medicine. Tiny Flower journeys to Flint-Covered Mountain, where the governor declares a contest between the two men over who will possess White Corn. With the aid of the medicine, Tiny Flower defeats the governor in a contest that consists of smoking tobacco and hurling bolts of lightning. The couple begins the journey home, but the governor pursues them in the form of a rainstorm. As they run, the rain and hail become so thick that they cannot move. Flocks of birds hover and protect them, and their safe arrival home is linked to the survival of white corn in San Juan, thus signifying the restoration of marital and agricultural harmony.

Both the governor and White Corn sat on the magic stick, and in moments they reached the top of Flint-Covered Mountain. On the roof-top of the governor’s house was a ladder made of cedarwood. The two climbed down the ladder into the house. At once the governor said, “Lady White Corn, this is my home, and now it’s yours too!” White Corn had been tricked. Like it or not, she had to stay with the governor.

“The Stolen Wife”

As the primary crop that originally allowed tribes to live in one place, corn represents survival for the Tewa Pueblo people. Yet corn also represents the wellspring of life because the Pueblo creation myth describes two Great Corn Mothers as the originators of humans. For this reason, many Tewa tales link corn with women, suggesting rich symbolic and cultural meanings for the plant. As the wife in the story, White Corn is a prize for which the hunter and the governor compete, but this patriarchal treatment conflicts with the sacred symbolism of corn as the origin of life. A symbolic analysis of “The Stolen Wife” and related Tewa tales suggests that corn is a complex symbol with a rich diversity of meanings that change depending on the context. Compared with similar stories, “The Stolen Wife” and its variants objectify corn and the women associated with it to a remarkable degree, inviting a closer look at the tale’s central concerns. The emphasis on masculine identity in this story suggests agricultural stability, rather than the Great Corn Mothers, as the primary context for the symbolic significance of corn.

Summary

The story begins in the village of Cu-oh-chi-tae, where a young man, Tiny Flower, lives in the house of his grandparents with his wife, White Corn, and their baby. Tiny Flower goes hunting one day, and White Corn goes to Green Willow Lake to collect water. Looking down into the water, she sees a magic stick and pulls it out. The owner of the stick is the governor of the Yellow Kachina people. The governor’s primary duty is to produce “rain, thunder, and clouds every day in the four directions” (Erdoes and Ortiz 285). Possessing magical powers, he observes the beauty of White Corn from far away and uses his “magic stick to fly to her” (285). He then springs forth from behind a bush and demands that she return the stick. In response, she laughs and runs away, prompting him to chase her around the lake, which she enjoys because he is handsome. For his part, he desires to have White Corn as his wife. When she finally stops and returns his stick, he asks for some of her water. When he does not drink all of the water, she explains a custom according to which a person who does not drink all of the water from a jar is supposed to have water poured on him. This prompts another playful chase in which White Corn runs after the governor, who allows her to splash water on him. He then invites her to his home on the top of Flint-Covered Mountain. She accepts, leaving her water jar overturned on the lakeshore. They travel to his home on the magic stick, but when they enter the dwelling, the governor announces that she must stay with him. At this point, White Corn realizes that she has been tricked.

Tiny Flower returns from hunting and finds his wife missing. His grandparents report that they have found her jar at the lake. Tiny Flower searches the village to no avail while their baby cries inconsolably. Tiny Flower grieves for several days until his grandfather tells him that he must visit Grandmother Spider, who will help him to find White Corn, “because she can spin her web into all parts of the earth” (Erdoes and Ortiz 286). Bearing gifts, Tiny Flower journeys for many days to the dwelling of Grandmother Spider. When he arrives, he humbly entreats her assistance. She tells him that White Corn has been kidnapped by the governor and dwells on the top of Flint-Covered Mountain. Further, he must return home to purify himself with holy water and then journey back to her for further instructions. Tiny Flower does this, at which point Grandmother Spider gives him a pipe, a bag of tobacco, and a medicine stick. She instructs him to use his saliva to rub the medicine stick on his body just before he arrives at the governor’s house. Then, he must use the pipe and tobacco in a competition with the governor. Whoever wins will keep White Corn. Tiny Flower thanks Grandmother Spider, who blesses him and sends him on his way.

Tiny Flower travels for several days through the mountains before he reaches Flint-Covered Mountain and the governor’s home. Climbing on the roof, he stomps on it until White Corn comes out and urges him to beware the governor because he is “so cruel and so powerful that something awful will happen to you!” (Erdoes and Ortiz 287). When Tiny Flower declares that he has come to take her home, White Corn tells him that he must wait for the governor because “I belong to him now” (287), and the governor would surely find and kill them if they tried to escape. When the governor returns, he shouts that he smells ashes, which must mean that White Corn has fed someone. White Corn first denies this but then admits her husband’s presence, at which point Tiny Flower appears. The governor then declares the contest, and Tiny Flower feigns weakness when he states, “Poor me; I don’t have any magical powers or know any tricks . . . but I must do what you say” (288). The governor first orders Tiny Flower to sit on a flagstone and then initiates the competition. Tiny Flower smokes from the governor’s pipe, which makes him dizzy, but he does not fall over. Seeing this, the governor insists that he must “know something,” but Tiny Flower denies that he knows anything of “the spirits” (288). The governor then sings a song in which he declares that Tiny Flower can take his wife if he is a “man” (288), but if not, he can take lightning with him. The governor then hurls a lightning bolt at Tiny Flower four times, singing the song each time, but the bolt fails to strike him.

It is then the governor’s turn to sit on the stone and smoke. He scoffs at Tiny Flower’s tiny pipe, but after he puffs on it four times, he falls to the floor. Tiny Flower then sings the same song that the governor had sung to him and hurls four lightning bolts, all of which strike the governor. He then tears the governor’s body into four pieces and tells his wife that he will take her home. They travel quickly through the mountains to thank Grandmother Spider and to return her medicine. She tells them that the governor is coming back to life, and as they race home, they see a white cloud in the distance as the sky darkens and thunder and lightning emerge. The rain intensifies as they approach home; when they cross the Rio Grande, they see birds circling above, and the hail becomes so thick that they can no longer run. The couple lies on the ground, and the birds use their wings to protect them from the hail. The birds on top of the protective shield become spotted from the hail, whereas the birds underneath remain a solid color. Tiny Flower promises to hunt four deer for the birds in thanks for their protection. When Tiny Flower and White Corn return home, the family reunites joyfully. The story concludes by stating that the return of Tiny Flower’s wife explains why white corn “still grows in the village of San Juan” (Erdoes and Ortiz 290).

Bibliography

Eggan, Fred. Foreword. The Tewa World: Space, Time, Being, and Becoming in a Pueblo Society. Ed. Alfonso Ortiz. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1969. Print.

Erdoes, Richard, and Alfonso Ortiz, eds. “The Stolen Wife.” American Indian Myths and Legends. New York: Pantheon, 1984. 285–89. Print.

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Ortiz, Alfonso. “Some Cultural Meanings of Corn in Aboriginal North America.” Corn and Culture in the Prehistoric NewWorld. Ed. Sissel Johannessen and Christine A. Hastorf. Boulder: Westview, 1994. 527–44. Print.

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