In the time before time, when the world was still soft and new, awaiting its first true songs, there was the Copper Woman.
Her skin held the warm, living glow of the metal for which she was named, shifting from a deep, earthy red in the morning sun to a soft, burnished gold in the twilight. Her hair was the deep, rich black of a raven’s wing, a cascade of shadow that fell to her knees.
She walked the earth alone, a solitary figure of immense, quiet power. Her feet knew the secret paths of the ancient forest, the cool press of moss against her soles, and the shifting, sighing sands of the shore. The rhythm of the tides was her heartbeat, a steady, eternal pulse against the land, and the whisper of the wind through the tall cedars was her own breath, giving life to the leaves. She was the earth, and the earth was her.
For ages, this was enough. She drew strength from the granite bones of the mountains and found peace in the endless expanse of the sky. But a profound loneliness, at first a faint echo, began to grow within her, settling like a persistent coastal fog that chills to the bone. The sun warmed her skin but could not reach the ache that had taken root in her soul. The moon, a silent, silver companion, sang its song of light and shadow, but the melody did not fill the vast, hollow emptiness within her. She would speak to the stoic, listening trees and sing to the playful otters, but their silent communion and fleeting joy only served to highlight her own unique, isolated consciousness. She sat by the great ocean, the water a vast, restless mirror of her own churning solitude, and she began to weep.
Her tears were not of simple sadness, but of a deep, creative yearning that had finally broken its banks. They flowed, salty and full of the life-force she embodied, carving glistening paths down her copper cheeks. They mingled with the mucus that ran from her nose, a testament to a sorrow so deep it liquefied her very being.
As her tears and sorrow pooled on the damp sand, a strange and miraculous thing happened. The glistening mixture began to stir, to bubble, to coalesce. It trembled, not with the vibrancy of deliberate life, but with the spasmodic energy of an accident. It took on a form. It was a clumsy, awkward shape, a being born not of joy and intention, but of grief and longing. Copper Woman, in her desolation, had created the first man.
But he was not a man of strength and wisdom. He was Snot Boy. His skin was pale and translucent, his limbs were weak, and his eyes held a vacant, watery gaze that could not meet hers. He was an incomplete being, a fragile echo of the companion she craved, lacking the fire of true life in his spirit. He could not hunt the deer in the forest, for his steps were clumsy and loud. He could not sing the songs of the earth, for his voice was a mere rasp. He was a shadow at her side, a constant, living reminder of her loneliness rather than a cure for it.
Copper Woman looked after him, for he was of her, and she felt a painful, protective pity. She would bring him berries and fish, and shelter him from the wind, but her heart remained heavy with a love that could find no purchase.
Snot Boy, fragile and flawed, did not last long in the vibrant, wild world that was Copper-Woman’s body. He faded as quickly and quietly as he had appeared, dissolving like sea foam on the shore, returning to the elements from which he was made. He left behind no trace, save for a new, sharper silence that now surrounded the Copper Woman.
She was alone once more, but the nature of her solitude had changed. In his passing, something had shifted within her. Her grief, once an overwhelming force, had been given a fragile form and had then departed.
The emptiness remained, but it was no longer an aching void. It was now a space of possibility, a fallow field awaiting a knowing hand. She had learned. She had created, and though her first attempt was a heartbreaking failure, she now understood the immense, untamed power that resided within her.
Copper Woman spent a long time in contemplation, watching the cycles of the seasons. She saw how the world did not spring forth from a single, chaotic burst, but from a patient, deliberate dance of balance and purpose. She understood that creation required more than just raw, desperate emotion. It required will. It required wisdom. It required a love that was not a need to be filled, but a gift to be given.
With this new understanding, Copper Woman rose. She was no longer the weeping, solitary figure on the shore. She was Matta, the mother.
She walked to the heart of the forest and gathered the richest clay, the color of a summer sunset. She breathed into it the warmth of her own spirit and molded it with hands that were now sure and steady. Strength forged in sorrow and loss, she would try again.
This time, not from tears of loneliness, but from the deliberate, Copper Woman, powerful magic of woman who knew her own worth, connection to all things, and make to bring forth true life, to shape the world, and to birth a nation.
“The Story of Copper Woman and Snot Boy” is a part of the book “Daughters of Copper Woman” by Anne Cameron. Anne Cameron, a Canadian writer, retells traditional Northwest Coast Native myths and legends in this work. The story of Copper Woman creating the first man, “Snot Boy,” is one of the key myths within the collection.
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