The Indian Cinderella Retold By Cyrus MacMillian

Blog Post 3
Book: The Indian Cinderella

Retold by Cyrus MacMillian

Publisher: The Bodley Head
ISBN: 0 684 81353 X

            This story is from a childhood book of mine The Children’s Book of Virtures by William J. Bennet.  I loved reading the stories and poems and learning about the differences between right and wrong, honesty and lying.  This story was a favorite of mine.

The Indian Cinderella is a folk tale from Canada.  The story is about an Indian named Strong Wind.  He is granted the power of invisibility from their god Glooskap.  Many of the maidens in the village wanted to marry him because the mighty deeds he did for Glooskap and he would marry the first maiden “who could see him as he came home at night.”  Many maidens tried to see him but no one succeeded.  So Strong Wind and his sister wanted to test the truthfulness of the maiden he would marry.  Every night Strong Wind would walk home from his daily deeds and his sister would be waiting with a maiden who wished to marry him.  He would make himself invisible and walk towards his sister and the maiden who wished to marry him. His sister asked several questions to each maiden if she saw him, if she said yes then she was lying.  This happened with all of the maidens wishing to marry Strong Wind.  The chief of the village had three daughters, the two eldest were jealous of the youngest, their mother died long ago.  “They clothed her in rags that she might be ugly; and they cut off her long black hair; and they burned her face with coals from the fire that she might be scarred and disfigured.”  One day, the two eldest sisters went with Strong Winds sister in an attempt to see him while he came home.  The two lied about seeing him and went home disappointed.  The next day the youngest sister tried her luck at seeing Strong Wind.  When she was asked if she could see Strong Wind she said no.  Since she spoke the truth Strong Wind became visible and made her his bride, with this her hair grew long and her scars were gone.  Because of their cruelty, Strong Wind turned the two eldest sisters into Aspen trees.     

My favorite aspect of this story in relation to the classical Cinderella is the setting and how the ‘prince’ is trying to find his princess.  The setting of the story is very unique; it’s located in an Indian village instead of a castle. These two environments are very similar yet so different.  They both play the same part as the grounds for the plot however; the differences make the stories unique.  For example, coal is mentioned in both versions of the story.  In modern day Cinderella, she sleeps by the fireplace and is covered in soot every morning, hence her name.  In the Indian Cinderella, her sisters burn her face with coal from a fire pit to make her unattractive. These subtleties create a connection to each other.

I liked the fact that there was a head father figure in this story instead of a mean stepmother.  It created a different unsaid tone within the story because there is one less female character within the family.  Usually in Cinderella, the stepmother treats Cinderella badly, but to see only the sisters do it in this version makes you wonder why they are so unkind to her.  In both versions, I think there is an untold story as to why the family members are so malicious to Cinderella.

            In the modern day version of Cinderella, Cinderella looses her glass slipper at the ball; the prince finds it and starts to search high and low for the owner.  In the Indian Cinderella, truthfulness takes the place of the slipper.  I think it shows that Strong Wind wants an honest maiden not a superficial one.  He wants someone who loves him for him not for his powers.  It shows what is important to a person and that lying never gets you anywhere. 

             The illustrations in the story are cleverly drawn and look realistic for the time period.  The pictures are drawn in detail showing mountains, trees and rivers; the clothes are elaborately drawn showing the beading and feathers.  There are rich colors to depict depth, contrast and detail for each section of the story.

            The Indian Cinderella is a strong story showing how “honestly is rewarded and dishonesty is punished.”  Many people should follow and try to live their lives by this.