Eskimo Folk-Tales. Various
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that Could Talk
Illustrations
1 Man and wife from Angmagssalik Frontispiece
2 To face page
3 Making a tupilak. Note the bones of various animals used: The monster is on the point of coming to life 18
4 Hunter in kayak. The creature behind is a monster that frightens all the seal away 34
5 Hunters encountering Sarqiserasak, a dangerous troll, who rows in a half kayak himself, and upsets all he meets with his paddle 34
6 Wizard preparing for a “spirit fight.” He is bound head to knees and hands behind; the magic drum resting on his foot is beating itself. Bird’s wings are fastened to his back 50
7 “Inland-dweller” armed with bow and arrow 70
8 An “inland-dweller,” half dog, half human, pointing out a settlement for destruction 96
9 A tupilak frightening a man to death in his kayak 96
10 Evil spirit entering a house 116
11 Wizard calling up a “helping spirit” 140
12 Flying race between two wizards, one of whom, unable to keep up, has fallen to earth, and is vainly begging the other to stop 148
13 Angiut, a “helping spirit,” who knows all about everywhere 148
Eskimo Folk-Tales
The Two Friends Who Set Off to Travel Round the World
Once there were two men who desired to travel round the world, that they might tell others what was the manner of it.
This was in the days when men were still many on the earth, and there were people in all the lands. Now we grow fewer and fewer. Evil and sickness have come upon men. See how I, who tell this story, drag my life along, unable to stand upon my feet.
The two men who were setting out had each newly taken a wife, and had as yet no children. They made themselves cups of musk-ox horn, each making a cup for himself from one side of the same beast’s head. And they set out, each going away from the other, that they might go by different ways and meet again some day. They travelled with sledges, and chose land to stay and live upon each summer.
It took them a long time to get round the world; they had children, and they grew old, and then their children also grew old, until at last the parents were so old that they could not walk, but the children led them.
And at last one day, they met—and of their drinking horns there was but the handle left, so many times had they drunk water by the way, scraping the horn against the ground as they filled them.
“The world is great indeed,” they said when they met.
They had been young at their starting, and now they were old men, led by their children.
Truly the world is great.
The Coming of Men, A Long, Long While Ago
Our forefathers have told us much of the coming of earth, and of men, and it was a long, long while ago. Those who lived long before our day, they did not know how to store their words in little black marks, as you do; they could only tell stories. And they told of many things, and therefore we are not without knowledge of these things, which we have heard told many and many a time, since we were little children. Old women do not waste their words idly, and we believe what they say. Old age does not lie.
A long, long time ago, when the earth was to be made, it fell down from the sky. Earth, hills and stones, all fell down from the sky, and thus the earth was made.
And then, when the earth was made, came men.
It is said that they came forth out of the earth. Little children came out of the earth. They came forth from among the willow bushes, all covered with willow leaves. And there they lay among the little bushes: lay and kicked, for they could not even crawl. And they got their food from the earth.
Then there is something about a man and a woman, but what of them? It is not clearly known. When did they find each other, and when had they grown up? I do not know. But the woman sewed, and made children’s clothes, and wandered forth. And she found little children, and dressed them in the clothes, and brought them home.
And in this way men grew to be many.
And being now so many, they desired to have dogs. So a man went out with a dog leash in his hand, and began to stamp on the ground, crying “Hok—hok—hok!” Then the dogs came hurrying out from the hummocks, and shook themselves violently, for their coats were full of sand. Thus men found dogs.
But then children began to be born, and men grew to be very many on the earth. They knew nothing of death in those days, a long, long time ago, and grew to be very old. At last they could not walk, but went blind, and could not lie down.
Neither did they know the sun, but lived in the dark. No day ever dawned. Only inside their houses was there ever light, and they burned water in their lamps, for in those days water would burn.
But these men who did not know how to die, they grew to be too many, and crowded the earth. And then there came a mighty flood from the sea. Many were drowned, and men grew fewer. We can still see marks of that great flood, on the high hill-tops, where mussel shells may often be found.
And now that men had begun to be fewer, two old women began to speak thus:
“Better to be without day, if thus we may be without death,” said the one.
“No; let us have both light and death,” said the other.
And when the old woman had spoken these words, it was as she had wished. Light came, and death.
It is said, that when the first man died, others covered up the body with stones. But the body came back again, not knowing rightly how to die. It stuck out its head from the bench, and tried to get up. But an old woman thrust it back, and said:
“We have much to carry, and our sledges are small.”
For they were about to set out on a hunting journey. And so the dead one was forced to go back to the mound of stones.
And now, after men had got light on their earth, they were able to go on journeys, and to hunt, and no longer needed to eat of the earth. And with death came also the sun, moon and stars.
For when men die, they go up into the sky and become brightly shining things there.
Nukúnguasik, Who Escaped from the Tupilak1
Nukúnguasik, it is said, had land in a place with many brothers. When the brothers made a catch, they gave him meat for the pot; he himself had no wife.
One day he rowed northward in his kayak, and suddenly he took it