the boy (Sun-Catcher legend)

Role: boy · First appears: The Sun-Catcher; or, the Boy who set a Snare for the Sun

In The Sun-Catcher; or, the Boy who set a Snare for the Sun, the boy and his sister, the girl (Sun-Catcher legend), live in fear and seclusion after the animals have killed everyone else. She makes him a bow and arrows and teaches him to hunt snowbirds; toward nightfall, he returns with one he has killed.

At a knoll, the sun singes and shrinks the boy’s bird-skin coat while he sleeps. Angered, he vows vengeance against the sun (Sun-Catcher legend). At the end of ten days, his sister makes a tiny cord from sinews taken from her body and gives it to him; a little after midnight, he sets a snare in the sun’s path and catches it, preventing it from rising.

Relationship record

Life events

• The girl gives the boy a bow and arrows and teaches him to hunt snowbirds.(The Sun-Catcher; or, the Boy who set a Snare for the Sun)
  • With: the girl (Sun-Catcher legend)
  • “She made him a bow and arrows, and said to him one day, ‘I will leave you behind where I have been chopping--you must hide yourself, and you will soon see the Gitshee-gitshee-gaun-ia-see-ug, or snow birds, come and pick the worms out of the wood, where I have been chopping’”
• The boy kills a snowbird.(The Sun-Catcher; or, the Boy who set a Snare for the Sun)
  • “Towards nightfall, she heard his little footsteps on the snow, and he came in exultingly, and threw down one of the birds which he had killed.”
• The sun singes and shrinks the boy’s bird-skin coat while he sleeps.(The Sun-Catcher; or, the Boy who set a Snare for the Sun · 📍 a knoll)
  • With: the sun (Sun-Catcher legend)
  • “He fell fast asleep; and while sleeping, the sun beat so hot upon him, that it singed and drew up his bird-skin coat, so that when he awoke and stretched himself, he felt bound in it, as it were.”
• The boy vows vengeance against the sun for damaging his coat.(The Sun-Catcher; or, the Boy who set a Snare for the Sun)
  • With: the sun (Sun-Catcher legend)
  • “He flew into a passion, and upbraided the sun, and vowed vengeance against it.”
• The girl makes the boy a snare from sinews taken from her body.(The Sun-Catcher; or, the Boy who set a Snare for the Sun)
  • With: the girl (Sun-Catcher legend)
  • “This she did, and twisting them into a tiny cord, she handed it to her brother.”
• The boy catches the sun in a snare, preventing it from rising.(The Sun-Catcher; or, the Boy who set a Snare for the Sun)
  • With: the sun (Sun-Catcher legend)
  • “He fixed his snare on a spot just where the sun would strike the land, as it rose above the earth's disk; and sure enough, he caught the sun, so that it was held fast in the cord, and did not rise.”

The Sun-Catcher; or, the Boy who set a Snare for the Sun

• siblings with the girl (Sun-Catcher legend) “At the time when the animals reigned in the earth, they had killed all but a girl, and her little brother, and these two were living in fear and seclusion.”
• enemies with the sun (Sun-Catcher legend) “He flew into a passion, and upbraided the sun, and vowed vengeance against it.”
• benefactor: the girl (Sun-Catcher legend) “At last she thought of her hair, and pulling some of it out of her head, made a string.”

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Extracted from the original text of The Myth of Hiawatha, and Other Oral Legends. Made with Rho MD.