The Star Husband tale is one of the most famous Native American myths and appears in countless variations across Western tribes. The most common version of the story involves two young women who decided to choose the stars in the sky they wanted to marry. One chose a bright star, and the other chose a dark-looking star (in some versions, the stars are white and red). They fell asleep, and when they woke they realized two men had joined them. The men explained that they were the stars the women had wished for and asked them to shut their eyes. When the women opened them, they found they were in a completely different world. The star men had brought them to their home in the sky, which had people, much like on Earth. The women proceeded to live with their new husbands, who told them that they could never return home to their families (Swann 2014, 520–522).
The two women from Earth followed around the other women in the star world and dug roots with them every day. One day, the two of them became so homesick that they decided to dig a hole that reached the bottom of the star world. When they finished the hole, they dropped a rope down the passage so that they could reach the other world below, tying one end to a large rock in the star world. They escaped and returned home (Swann 2014, 520–522). Another version of the tale involves a large turnip, which one woman uprooted to reveal the hole to the earth world (Kroeber 2004, 121–122).
In most versions of the story the women have children by their star husbands, but some renditions describe the births taking place in the star world, whereas others claim they gave birth to their star children when they returned to Earth. Other variations of the tale say that only one of the women gave birth to a child, a boy, who came to be known as Star Boy, and became the subject of many myths of his own. In extended renditions of the Star Husband myth, he disappears as a child, only to return home many years later as a young man. In one Snoqualmie story, his star father is afraid that the boy is destined to do something big and tries to reclaim him back to the star world. The boy spends time in his father’s world, where he marries a girl but returns to Earth and miraculously makes a pile of salmon appear before each tribesman when the tribe visits the falls. Other renditions describe the boy embarking on many travels and adventures (Swann 2014, 523–524).
In Blackfoot lore, the Star Husband story takes on special significance. In the Blackfoot version, only one woman is married to a star, specifically the Morning Star, and she is mentioned by name as Feather Woman. Her son, Star Boy, comes to be known as Scarface due to a mysterious scar that supposedly became more severe on his face as he grew older. Scarface is said to have been the originator of the Blackfoot Sun Dance, a ritual ceremony attended by many Blackfoot people in the springtime after winter separations (Kroeber 2004, 118–119).
Often the Star Husband tale is linked or merged with a similar story called “The Woman Enticed by the Sky.” In this narrative, a woman followed a porcupine up a tree and ended up in a new world miles above the earth. Her new husband gave her tasks to do, such as gathering roots, wild turnips, and other herbs as well as tending to the beef and hides he brought home. He warned her not to dig too deep while searching for roots, but like the women in the other story, this woman accidentally dug too deep and came across another deep hole. The hole led to the earth below and her old camp-circle, and she used the hole to get home. Her husband helped her land safely, and she reunited with her family (Thompson 1929, 128–130).
Emily Ann Francisco
See also Algon and the Sky Girl; Star Boy, a Blackfoot Legend
Further Reading
Kroeber, Karl. 2004. Native American Storytelling: A Reader of Myths and Legends. Oxford: Blackwell.
Swann, Brian, ed. 2014. Sky Loom: Native American Myth, Story, and Song. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press.
Thompson, Stith, ed. 1929. Tales of the North American Indians. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Young, Frank W. 1970. “A Fifth Analysis of the Star Husband Tale.” Ethnology 9 (4): 389–413.