Eskimo Folk-Tales. Various
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Not until they called to him for the third time did he answer:
“The beasts I have struck move always farther in, towards my house.”
And now they had just begun laughing at him out there, when they heard a washing of water closer in to shore, and there it lay, quite like a tiny fish, turning about in its death struggle. They rowed up to it at once and made a tow line fast. The strong man rowed up to them, and when he came to where they were, no one of them was eating. Then he said:
“Not one of you eating, and here a newly-killed whale?”
When he said this, Qujâvârssuk answered:
“None may eat of it until my mother has first eaten.”
But the strong man tried then to take a mouthful, although this had been said. And when he did so, froth came out of his mouth at once. And he spat out that mouthful, because it was destroying his mouth.
And they brought that catch home, and Qujâvârssuk’s mother ate of it, and then at last all ate of it likewise, and then none had any badness in the mouth from eating of it. But the strong man sat for a long time the only one of them all who did not eat, and that because he must wait till his mouth was well again.
And the strong man of Amerdloq did not catch a whale at all until after Qujâvârssuk had caught another one.
For a whole year Qujâvârssuk stayed at Amerdloq, and when it was spring, he went back southward to his home. He came to his own land, and there at a later time he died.
And that is all.
1 According to custom. It is believed that the qualities of the dead are thus transferred to the living namesake.
2 Umiak: a large boat, as distinct from the small kayak.
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