Week 9 Storytelling - Tests for son-in-Law

Wemicus had a beautiful daughter. Everyone wanted to marry her because of her beauty. Indeed, she could marry many great husbands. As a father, Wemicus did not like many husbands of his daughter. He thought his daughter deserved the best man out of the best. That was why he created several different tests for his son-in-law.


One day, he called half of his sons-in-law. They gathered in the forest of Wemicus, waiting for Wemicus. Instead of showing off to the meeting, Wemicus decided to bring a test to them. He attracted a huge bear that was living in the forest, and took a bear to sons-in-law.


"Any man who wants to be my son-in-law should have a strength of a bear."


He knew that was impossible. Without a single weapon on their hands, he laughed as a bear approached those men. A bear started to attack sons-in-law while they were in panic. Only half of them lived.

On that night, Wemicus gathered rest of the survivors. They were injured. Wemicus provided the medicine and foods for them. However, he did not provide any shelters for them. They were far away from home, so there was no other choice but to stay there and camp for the night.


"Any man who wants to be my son-in-law should have a skill to survive a night."


He left them as he spoke. Survivors gathered together. They tried to make fire, make a campsite. However, half of them were wounded so bad, they could not survive the cold night without proper care and warm house to sleep.


Wemicus came back to the spot where he left them. He told rest of the survivors to come with him. Wemicus took them to the river nearby. The river was flowing fast. He got on his canoe that was prepared. As he got on a canoe and crossed a river, he looked back at his sons-in-law.


"Any man who wants to be my son-in-law should across this river without his boat."


He spoke. Rest of the survivors started to cross the river. However, without a canoe, those who could not swim, and those who were too weak to stand against the flow of river did not make it. With few survivors left, Wemicus decided to throw a final challenge for his sons-in-law.


Wemicus took them to the camp site where they could finally rest. Wemicus provided what they need. Survivors were well-fed and the camp site were comfortable. Wemicus told them, now they can rest. All tests were over for them. They were approved as his sons-in-law. Survivors believed in his words. Without any cautions, they decided to have the rest that they need.

At that night, Wemicus approached their tents. With torch on his hand, he decided to burn their tents.


"Any man who wants to be my son-in-law should survive from the wild fire."


However, there was no single survivor. Everybody was too tired to wake up from the rest that they could not have for several days. Those survivors eventually died. Wemicus shook his head as if he was disappointed.


"So no man is strong enough to be my son-in-law."


He was disappointed. Wemicus noticed the deaths of sons-in-law to people around him. Many men were interested because they knew how beautiful his daughter was. Wemicus informed them that anyone can marry his daughter.


"Any man who wants to be my son-in-law shall pass my tests."


It was under only one condition.

(Canoe by nyamaru kamome)

Author's note: This story was from the Hero Tales of Native American mythology reading. The title of the story was The son-in-law tests. It was a story about Wemicus who had a daughter that had many great husbands. Wemicus gave them tests which eventually killed them, and one of them eventually survived from the Wemicus tests and be a son-in-law for Wemicus. The original story was based on the conflict between Wemicus and his son-in-law but I thought it was a great idea to write about what happened to those who died, and how those tests of Wemicus killed those sons-in-law. I saw other people from mythology group was writing about story that happened before the original story, and I thought it was a great idea and I thought this was a great opportunity to try this technique.


Bibliography : The Son-in-Law Tests from Tales of the North American Indians by Stith Thompson