Intellectual Culture of the Iglulik Eskimos/Chapter 11

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Old men and women among the Iglulingmiut and Aivilingmiut, remember but few of the common Eskimo folk tales as compared with many other tribes: this is due to the fact that their interest in the stories is not particularly great, thanks to certain "modern" views which they have acquired through intercourse with white men. There were at any rate no professional story-tellers among them, such as we find in Greenland, where there are still persons who live during winter by telling stories to shorten the long nights for their fellows. The stories were narrated in a naive and incoherent fashion, so that it was often difficult to follow the plot. Often they could not understand that anyone should not have heard all their stories before, and would therefore have no hesitation about starting off in the middle of a tale, or leaving out whole episodes which they themselves considered uninteresting.

In writing down these folk tales, I received very valuable assistance from Jacob Olsen, and as a rule, none was written down until we both knew it and had heard it several times, preferably from different sources. But once we had got hold of the action and details of the story, we could check the version given by any particular storyteller, and the Eskimo text was then written down from his own dictation. The translations follow as closely as possible the original text.

Through the medium of these folk tales, children and adults learn of the events concerning which any tradition has been preserved, and which have become myths forming part of the life of the tribe. They are always regarded as history, and as referring to actual happenings which once took place. Little will be needed in the way of commentary to these tales, and only in the case of those which the Eskimos themselves regard as belonging to the very earliest chapters of their history. Otherwise, a brief introduction will suffice, similar to that given in my previous collections of folk tales and myths from Greenland. Stories known in Greenland are marked with a (G) in brackets. As soon as the collections from all the different tribes have been pub​lished, a general survey will be given, in the last volume, showing how the same story is repeated in the different districts.

With regard to the creation, there is not, as for instance among the Polar Eskimos of North Greenland or the Eskimos of Alaska, any detailed tradition preserved. When questioned on the subject, the natives will generally answer that they know nothing about the creation of the earth; they know it simply at it is and as they have seen it for themselves. One old shaman, however, Unaleq, was able to give the following account, which was subsequently found to be generally known also among the Iglulingmiut:

"It is said that once upon a time the world fell to pieces, and every living thing was destroyed. There came mighty downpours of rain from the heavens, and the earth itself was destroyed. Afterwards, two men appeared on earth. They came from hummocks of earth; they were born so. They were already fully grown when they emerged from the ground. They lived together as man and wife, and soon one of them was with child. Then the one who had been husband sang a magic song:

When these words were sung, the man's penis split with a loud noise and he became a woman, and gave birth to a child. From these three mankind grew to be many".

Unaleq's wife, Tûglik, gave us the following version, which she had from her great-grandmother. I include it here, although it is very much like Unaleq's, because it mentions that the earth "stands on pillars", which is in accordance with ancient Greenland traditions.

"There was once a world before this, and in it lived people who were not of our tribe. But the pillars of the earth collapsed, and all was destroyed. And the world was emptiness. Then two men grew up from a hummock of earth. They were born and fully grown all at once. And they wished to have children. A magic song changed ​one of them into a woman, and they had children. These were our earliest forefathers, and from them all the lands were peopled."

During the first period after the creation of the earth, all was darkness. Among the earliest living beings were the raven and the fox. One day they met, and fell into talk, as follows:

"Let us keep the dark and be without daylight," said the fox.

But the raven answered: "May the light come and daylight alternate with the dark of night."

The raven kept on shrieking: "qa·ᵓʳɳ, qa·ᵓʳɳ!" (Thus the Eskimos interpret the cry of the raven, qa·ᵓʳɳ, roughly as qa·ᵓq, which means dawn and light. The raven is thus born calling for light). And at the raven's cry, light came, and day began to alternate with night.

It is said that in the days when the earth was dark, the only creatures men had to hunt were ptarmigan and hare, and these were hunted by wetting the forefinger and holding it out in the air; the finger then became luminous and it was possible to see the animal hunted.

To this account, given by Ivaluardjuk, the following was added by Inugpasugjuk, who however, was a Netsilingmio:

"In the very earliest times, it was very difficult for men to hunt. They were not such skilful hunters as those who live now. They had not so many hunting implements, and had not the pleasure of abundant and varied food that we now have. When I was a child, I heard old people say that once, long long ago, men ate of the earth. Our forefathers ate of the earth; when they halted on a journey and camped, they worked at the soil with picks made of caribou horn, breaking up the earth and searching for food. That was in the days when it was a very difficult matter to kill a caribou, and it is said they had to make a single animal last all summer and autumn. Therefore they were obliged to seek other food.

"In those days, men were not clad as now, in warm caribou skins, but had to use skins of birds and foxes. So men lived in those days. In summer, when they were starting up country, they had to be content with a little unborn seal, a tiny thing too small even to be frightened away down through the mother's blow hole when people came up to it on the ice to kill it.

"In those days, earth was the principal food of man."

​Where the first human beings came from cannot be stated with certainty, but the Aivilingmiut have an old tradition referring to a story current among the Qaernermiut near Baker Lake, and heard down at Aksarneq, Chesterfield Inlet:

"The first human beings came from among the Pâdlermiut (the natives living on the shores of Hikuligjuaq, or Lake Yathkyed). It was from here, up inland, that the first human beings began to come, but where they came from before they reached those parts, or how they came to be many, no one can say. All that we know is that in the olden days, mankind did not multiply so rapidly as now, it was a very long time before there were many, and therefore the earth itself had to help:

It is said that in very ancient times, in the earliest ages, women were often unable to have children. And when people were out on a journey and settled at a place, one might see them going round about the camping ground, bending down and searching about in the earth. It is said that in that way they sought for children from the earth, the children of earth. And with the children they found on the ground it was in this wise: a long search was needed to find boys, but one had not to go far to find girls. Not all however, were equally lucky. Some found only girls, perhaps because they would not take the trouble to go far, being lazy, but those who were not afraid of walking, those who were not lazy, they had sons. As soon as a child was found on the ground, it was picked up at once and put in the amaut, and carried off home. The women who came home with children they had found, observed precisely the same taboo and the same rules as those who had themselves given birth to a child, and were similarly regarded as unclean. They were given a birth hut of snow, or if it happened in summer, a small tent, and there they stayed for the time prescribed after childbirth, during which the woman must live apart from her husband, and they were treated exactly as if they had borne children of their own flesh and blood. Some found children very easily, others found none, however much they sought about.

Thus the earth gave the first people their children, and in that way they grew to be many.

When it had grown light on earth, human beings lived in the same way as they do now. They lived by pursuing game, and chose for preference places where there was abundance of game. It was far ​easier then to move from one place to another than it is now, for every house had its own particular inua, its own spirit, which, when the household wished to move to another place, shifted the whole house with all the people in it and all their household goods, away to the spot where they wished to be. And in regard to this is the following story:

One night a house suddenly rose up from the ground and went floating through the air. It was dark, and it is said that a swishing, rushing noise was heard as it flew through the air. The house had not yet reached the end of its road when the people inside begged it to stop. So the house stopped.

They had no blubber when they stopped. So they took soft, freshly drifted snow and put in their lamps, and it burned.

They had come down at a village. A man came in to their house and said:

"Look, they are burning snow in their lamps. Snow can burn."

But the moment these words were uttered, the lamp went out.

This happened in the days when the houses had spirits and were alive, and would move with all the people in them from one hunting ground to another. In those days, people out on hunting expeditions could also burn soft, freshly drifted snow.

The first human beings had no kayaks for hunting caribou on the lakes, nor had they umiᴀqs as up at Tununeq, for voyaging on the sea and hunting off the coast. All they could do then was to sit on an inflated skin, when they wanted to cross a piece of water. We have knowledge of this from an old story, which runs as follows:

Eqivdlertuarjuk and Qungasinaitjoq were two old men, and they were friends. One day they sat together telling each other stories, and the talk turned on those old times when men were wont to make boats of inflated skins. The two old men grew more and more excited as they talked, and then they began to compete with each other as to which of them could make the better boat out of an inflated skin. They took a sealskin tent, sewed it up and blew it full of air, and when that was done, they set it out into the water. They now ​wished to have their wives with them, and took them on board the inflated sealskin and sailed away. They paddled round the island of Iglorjuartalik, south of Tajarneq (Beach Point). When they had rounded the point, they rowed on further southward to another point of land called Suloraq. Here they set their wives on shore, and the women walked on along the beach, while the men paddled ahead to Petigtorjik. They were not far from land when suddenly their boat sprang a leak, and they came near to sinking. The waves closed over Eqivdlertuarjuk's white beard, and he sank. But Qungasinaitjoq caught hold of the tail of a dog they had with them, and it swam with him in to shore, and so he was saved.

Inflated skins were good boats in those days when no other craft were known.

It is believed that the different kinds of people are descended from the woman who was married to a dog. From her come the Indians in the woods, and the white men who come in the great ships. There are also some who believe that the iʲᴇrqät, the mountain spirits, which occupy all countries, are descended from the dog-children of that girl. No one can say anything with certainty; it is simply said that mankind did not grow to be many until after a girl had married a dog and later went down to the bottom of the sea and procured game for men. (This story is told under the heading of Takánakapsâluk).

Before the present Iglulingmiut and Aivilingmiut came to the land where they now live, it was inhabited by a great and strong people called Tunit. They lived in stone houses in winter, and were mighty men in all manner of hunting by sea. But they were very quarrelsome, and easily angered. At first the tribes lived peaceably together down by the coast, but the Tunit were too easily angered, and were at last driven out of the country.

It is said that the Tunit had many villages at Uglit near Iglulik. They lived in houses built of stone and the bones of whales. They were strong folk, skilful in hunting by sea. They hunted the walrus with a long harpoon line and a short one. When they had harpooned a walrus with the short line, they gave it a jerk, and so strong were they, that this broke the creature's neck.

A walrus hauled up on the ice was dragged home just like an ​ordinary fjord seal, by thongs fastened to its body; so strong were those men. Their hunting grounds were far away from their houses, and it might therefore happen that they felt tired when at last they approached their houses with one of these walrus in tow. When they were at the extremity of weariness, the women would come out of the houses, and these Tunit, who loved their womenfolk, were so rejoiced at seeing them outside the houses, that they forgot their weariness in a moment, and with renewed strength dragged the walrus up to the houses.

The Tunit were a strong people, and yet they were driven from their villages by others who were more numerous, by many people of great ancestors; but so greatly did they love their country, that when they were leaving Uglit, there was a man who, out of desperate love for his village, harpooned the rocks with his harpoon and made the stones fly about like bits of ice.

Whenever I talked with Ivaluardjuk or his brother Aua about their views of life and human beings, they were very fond of referring to the folk tales when there was anything they could not explain, for "Those stories were made when all unbelievable things could happen". They would also take the events of the stories as examples showing how everything recoils on oneself if one does not try to be good to one's fellow. The folk-tales therefore not only give an idea of the Eskimo moral code, but, viewed in the same light as themselves afford likewise a reflection of their feelings, of what they admire and what they despise or condemn. They love strength and fearlessness, helpfulness and kindliness. We should be kind one to another; cruelty not only hurts the person ill-treated, but recoils upon the doer. Nothing is more certain than Nemesis. This is illustrated in the three following stories:

There were once a man and his wife who had three daughters, two grown-up daughters and a little tiny girl. They lived happily together until it happened that the father, for no reason, began to starve his eldest daughter, who was now of an age to be married. This ​took place after all the other people of the village had gone off on a hunting expedition, and the father with his wife and children were left alone in the village. The neighbours on setting out had left their snow huts empty, and the father shut up his grown-up daughter in one of these, and kept her there without food.

Her mother and the two younger sisters wished to help her, but could find no way to do it. Whenever the imprisoned daughter slipped out and tried to get in to the others, her father drove her out into the empty, cold and deserted snow hut, without giving her sleeping rugs to lie on, for he wanted her to freeze to death, so that he should not have the trouble of keeping her. He closed up the entrance so that she could not get out; and to make it thoroughly cold inside, the father made an opening up in the roof, through which the cold came in, so that the hut could not even be warmed the least little bit by the heat of her body. But as it happened, the girl lived all the same. She suffered from cold, suffered so that she was near to perishing, and that was not surprising since there was no lamp in the snow hut; but all the same she did not die. One day her younger sisters came over to the hut and stood outside to hear how she was, and the girl inside spoke to them as follows:

"Say I will not die, I cannot freeze to death; ask then if I might not as well be allowed to come home to you. Hair is growing on my calves and hands, hair like that of an animal."

The two sisters went home and told their father and mother, but the father nevertheless would not give her leave to come home. So the two sisters went back to the snow hut, and once more the girl inside said to them:

"I am turning into a land bear, therefore I cannot die. The hair is growing on my body. Do let me come home and be with you. I feel ashamed at the thought of becoming a land bear. In order that I should not die of cold, hair has now grown all over my body."

But the father was implacable. At last hair began to grow on her face as well, and then she called her mother over to the snow hut, and the mother and the two sisters went over to the snow hut and stood close to the hole in the roof, and the girl inside talked to them, till the mother wept and the two little sisters wept.

The elder of the two little sisters, who used to come over to the snow hut to hear how it fared with their sister who was shut up inside, had some skin stretchers (small wooden sticks used for stretching out skins) and these she kept in a small skin bag. Now the imprisoned girl talked to this sister and said:

"Soon I shall run away up into the hills, because I have turned into a land bear, and should I now come after you, all you have to ​do is to thrust these sticks into the ground so as to form a ring. Once inside that ring you will be safe, and I shall not be able to hurt you."

Night came, and all slept. Next morning, when it was light, a deep growling was heard outside, and one could hear an animal gnawing with great teeth at something hard. It was the imprisoned girl, who had turned into a land bear, and was now burrowing a way out of the hut. Then the others hurriedly set to work, the wicked father and the mother and the two sisters. They loaded up their sledges, harnessed their dogs, and as soon as they were ready, they drove off. The land bear was then so far out through the wall of the hut that one could see its chest. The father bade his wife run in front of the dogs, and the wife ran in front of the dogs; they followed the sledge tracks. The father had stayed behind to fetch something, and before he had time to get away, the land bear flung itself upon him and bit him to death. The land bear then at once looked round after more prey, sniffed at the tracks and set off in pursuit of the fugitives. The mother and the two sisters, who saw it coming, now stuck the skin-stretchers down into the snow in a circle and placed themselves inside the circle. They wept with fright when they saw the wild beast come running up; it reached the skin-stretchers, sniffed at them, but kept on running round them in a ring without going inside, and when it had done this a few times, it, turned its back on them and trotted off up country as a real land bear.

There was once a village of two houses, and in both houses there was dearth of food. When the trouble was at its worst, those in the one house caught a seal. It was the custom always to give one another gifts of meat when a catch was made, but this time, the people in the house where they had meat wished to keep the whole seal for themselves, and said therefore to their neighbours:

"We know it is not the right thing to do, but this time we are going to keep the whole seal for ourselves."

In the house where they had no meat there was an old man who was so exhausted that he could no longer rise from where he lay. He had a son, who went out every day trying to find game, but was never lucky enough to come upon any living thing. He redoubled his efforts now that they could no longer look for help from their neighbours in the other house, and he went out early in the morning and did not return until the evening. One day while he was out he espied a giant bear that had made a shelter for itself among some pressure ​ridges in the ice, and lay there with its cubs. He went off home at once to fetch heavier weapons than those he had with him, and made himself a huge harpoon out of a tent pole. As soon as the big harpoon was finished, he set out to try to kill the giant bear, and his father rose up from where he lay and went with him. They came to the lair, and the son at once set about making an opening in the ice from above, while his old father stood there on the ice looking on. As soon as he had made an opening, the young man thrust his harpoon down into the body of the giant bear and stabbed it again and again. The bear crawled out from its lair growling. The old man saw the bear coming at him with jaws agape, and ran straight towards it. At the same moment the bear drew in its breath, and the old man flew right down its throat. The man went right down into the belly of the bear, but slit it open as rapidly as he could with his knife; his clothes were almost boiled when he came out, and the skin was scalded off his face. He was half suffocated. Meantime the yound man stabbed the giant bear with his harpoon as often as he could get at it, and dodged in between its feet every time. Thus the giant bear was killed. This time they contented themselves with cutting off a small piece of meat, and then went to their village, and as they passed by their neighbours' house, the old man called in to them:

"Neighbours! My son has got a bear, but we will not give you any gift of meat, not even a scrap of blubber for the children!"

The old man and his son ate up the piece of meat they had brought home with them, and then they moved away from that house over to the spot where they had killed the giant bear, and built a snow hut there. They had now meat enough for the whole winter.

But their neighbours, who had not helped them with gifts of meat when they themselves had caught a seal, all starved to death.

In the olden days it often happened that people gathered together to play and engage in various kinds of sport. Once the people of the village were playing ataujᴀq, a game played with a ball, in which the players must take care to keep the ball up in the air all the time and not let it fall to the ground. While they were playing, a loon came flying low close over their heads.

When the players caught sight of the loon, they shouted out loudly to frighten it. The bird was so terrified that it fell to the ground, and then one ran and picked it up before it could recover strength enough to rise, and plucked off all its feathers, leaving it bare all except the wings; then they set it free to fly away.

​But the loon, having lost all its feathers, sickened and grew thin, and felt a great anger within itself.

And the winter came, and much soft snow fell, and people starved to death.

That was the loon's revenge upon those who had tormented it.

Two men came to a hole in the sky. One asked the other to lift him up. If only he would do so, then he in turn would lend him a hand.

His comrade lifted him up, but hardly was he up when he shouted aloud for joy, forgot his comrade and ran into heaven.

The other could just manage to peep in over the edge of the hole: it was full of feathers inside. But so beautiful was it in heaven that the man who looked in over the edge forgot everything, forgot his comrade whom he had promised to help up and simply ran off in to all the splendour of heaven.

There were once two young girls, both unmarried, though they were old enough to have husbands. It was a habit of theirs to stay up at night. Their father did not approve of this, and when he had scolded them, the girls ran away from their village. They lived on ptarmigan, which the older sister caught on the way, but she always divided the meat with her sister in such a manner that she herself had the breast, while the younger one had to be content with the bony part.

The little sister, who was always cheated of her share, once began singing a song of questions to her sister:

​"No," answered the elder sister, and the younger said:

"No," answered the elder sister, and the younger said again:

"No," said the elder sister; and the younger then named all the animals one after another.

"No," answered the elder sister, and again the little one said:

"Yes!" answered her sister.

And then one of them picked up a piece of dry skin and the other a small piece of firestone (iron pyrites), and when one crumpled the stiff hide with a rattling noise, and the other struck sparks from the stone and both made water at the same time, then came thunder and lightning and rain all together.

And that is how thunder and lightning first came. To begin with, the two girls kept to the neighbourhood of their own village, but people grew afraid of them, and the shamans drove them away, and after that the two girls fled to the white men's country, where they now live; only now and then in summer do they visit their own country. They are never in want of food now, for whenever they ​like they can kill a caribou with lightning and eat it, and it is said that they grew to be very old.

One evening a bear suddenly appeared in a village and the people came out to hunt it. The men harnessed their teams to the sledges, and went off in chase. A boy who was with them said:

"I have dropped my mitten of caribou skin."

The man with whom he was driving said to him:

"Well you can go and look for it by yourself. There is nothing to be afraid of, it is bright moonlight."

The boy dropped from the sledge, but as he did so, the sledge suddenly began to rise up in the air, with dogs and those in it as well.

"Where are we driving to now?" asked the man in surprise.

"Where are we driving to?" asked the other.

"We are driving right up into heaven," said others again. And the sledge with the dogs kept on rising and rising; and at last it came up to heaven, and there it turned into the uᵛdläktut (literally, those hunting a bear).

A land bear in human form often used to come to a village and steal meat from the stores. He did this at night, while people were asleep, and therefore no one could discover it. But it happened again and again, and at last an old man hid in one of the meat stores to find out who was the thief. In the night he heard a creaking in the snow, and a little after a bear in human form came up to the spot. The man in hiding kept quiet, and took care not to breathe. The bear listened for his breathing, but as it could not hear anything, it flung him over its shoulder and carried him off.

The bear went a long distance with its burden, then laid it down on the ground again and examined it, but still found no sign of life, and so hoisted it on its shoulder again and went on. When it had gone some little way, the man caught hold of a willow twig. He was being carried head downwards. It happened so suddenly that the bear nearly fell over backwards. Again he laid down his burden, listened for his breathing, but could hear none. Then it went on again, but once more the man caught hold of a willow twig, and once more the bear nearly fell backwards. Again it examined the body, but finding no sign of life, went on again, and at last, after a long time, came in ​sight of a house. The bear's children came out chattering gaily to meet them, and one said:

"I will eat the hands",

the other said:

"I will have the eyes".

The bear laid the man down beside its house, and its wife came. The wife also laid her ear to the man's mouth and listened for his breathing, but as there seemed to be none, she dragged the man into the house, laid him on the floor and threw an adze on top of him. The bear's wife waited a while, expecting him to thaw, but at last she grew impatient, and snatching up her knife, tried to slit him open. But the man set his muscles hard, and the knife slipped, and the bear's wife said:

"Oh, he is frozen hard. I had better wait until he has thawed a bit more."

The land bear lay down on the bench to rest, and presently fell asleep. His wife went outside. Just then the man opened his eyes and picked up the adze. The children saw it and cried out at once:

"Our dainty morsel has opened his eyes. Look, he has opened his eyes".

"No wonder, then" said the land bear, "that he was able to make himself such a weight today. If he is alive, I can better understand it".

But now the man jumped up, grasping the adze, and slew the land bear and fled out of the house. He ran off homewards at full speed, the bear's wife after him. She was just on the point of overtaking him when the man said:

"May a ridge of mountain rise up behind me!" And at once a ridge of mountain rose up behind him as he ran, and the bear's wife had first to get over that. But it soon got across, and was again on the point of overtaking him when he said:

"May a river spring out behind me." And at once a river sprang out behind him, and the bear's wife called out to him as he ran:

"How did you manage to get across that river?"

"I chewed at it and swallowed it down!"

The bear's wife began drinking from the river, but at last she could drink no more, and turned into a real land bear again and went swimming across the river. On reaching the other side, it shook the water from its coat, but it was full of water inside as well, and when it shook itself, it burst with a loud noise and a fog spread over the country.

It is from this land bear that the fog first came.

​

There was once a man who had married a wild goose. It had flown away from him, and so he wandered off alone and came to a village where there lived gulls and ravens in a double house with one entrance to the two sides.

Before we go on with the story, I must tell you that the man in this story had once been out walking when he came upon a party of young women running about and playing on the open ground without any clothes on. He saw their clothes, and stole up to them, and just as he had reached the clothes, all the women came running towards him. Now he wanted a wife, a strong wife, so he showed them a bit of line made from the hide of a bearded seal and told them to pull. He wanted to try their strength, and choose the strongest for his wife. He chose the strongest, and she became his wife. After that they lived together and had children, but one day when the autumn had come, and the wild geese were flying away, the man was left alone. He tried to follow in the same direction as the wild geese had taken, and it was thus he came to the village of gulls and ravens.

He went in to the ravens first, and they received him hospitably, and were at once eager to find him something to eat. The host said to one of the others in the house:

"You, broad-chested one, go out and fetch the breast of a bird."

The broad-chested one went out and came in with a piece of frozen dog's dirt. When the man saw that he said:

"We human beings cannot eat such stuff as that."

The raven answered:

"Kra, kra, then I will eat it myself." And it ate it.

Then the man heard a whistling noise from the other side of the house:

"Kty, kty, come in here, come in here!"

The man went in, and the gull took out a dried fish from the space under the bench. The man thought this was nice, and ate it. He slept in the gull's house, and next day went on again to find the land of the wild geese. He walked on and on for many days, and when he felt lonely, he would sing and sing of all that had happened to him:

Thus the man sang of all that happened to him, but he overcame all obstacles, and at last one day he reached the land of birds.

And there in the village was his youngest son playing outside the house, and when he saw his father, he called in to his mother:

"I have seen Father. Father has come. Father has come.

His mother answered:

"Do not speak of your father. We left him behind far far away in another country".

But the son answered:

"Father has come, Father has come."

"Well then, try to get him to come in" answered his mother.

Then the father went in, but when he tried to sit down beside his wife, she flew away from him, and settled in the other part of the house, for it was a double house. But the man went after her and sat down again beside his wife; but now she flew off again to the spot where she had been sitting at first. The man moved over to her again, but this time he wetted his first finger with spittle and touched her with it before sitting down. Then she stayed where she was and did not fly away from him again.

Thus this man found his way to his wife and lived ever after in the Land of Birds.

There was once an old woman who took in a bear's cub to live with her. She brought it up and taught it, and soon it was big enough to go out and play with the children in the village, and the bear and the children fought and wrestled and played together.

The bear grew up and was soon so big that some of the people in the village wanted to kill and eat it. But the old woman wept, and prayed for her bear and did so wish that it might live. When at last she dared not keep it any longer, she urged it to run away. But before the bear left its foster-mother, it spoke to her thus:

"You shall never suffer want. If you should be in want, go down to the edge of the ice, and there you will see some bears. Call them, and they will come."

​The old woman did as the bear had said. When she began to be in want, she went out on to the sea ice and began looking about for bears. She saw a bear on a drifting icefloe, and called to it, but when the bear saw and heard her it fled away.

The old woman went on until she saw another bear, and called to this one also. The bear heard her, and as soon as it had seen her, it ran over to the other bear, that was close by, and began fighting with it. It soon killed the bear it was fighting, and hauled it in to land, and left it there even before the foster-mother had reached the spot. After that the old woman lived in abundance on the meat of the bear that had been given her, and even gave her neighbours some for themselves. Thus it came about that greedy people in the village themselves caused a bear, that might have procured meat for them all, to go away and leave them.

There was once a barren woman, who could never have any children; at last she took in a larva and nursed it in her armpits, and it was not long before the larva began to grow up. But the more it grew, the less blood the woman had for it to suck. Therefore she often went visiting the houses near by, to set the blood in motion, but she never stayed long away from home, for she was always thinking of her dear larva, and hurried back to it. So greatly did she long for it, so fond of it had she grown, that whenever she came to the entrance of her house, she would call out to it:

"Tit·it·ᴀ·q tᴇʀumiᴀrit!": "Oh, little one that can hiss, say 'te-e-e-ᴇ·r'.

And when she said that, the larva would say in answer:

"Te-e-e-e-ᴇ·r".

The woman then hurried into the house, took the larva on her lap and sang to it:

And then she would bite it out of pure love.

The larva grew up and became a big thing. At last it began to move about the village among the houses, and the people were afraid of it and wanted to kill it, partly because they were afraid and partly ​because they thought it was a pity to let the woman go on growing paler and paler from loss of blood.

So one day when the woman was out visiting, they went into her house and threw the larva out into the passage. Then the dogs flung themselves on it and bit it to death. It was completely filled with blood, and the blood poured out of it.

The woman who had been out visiting came home all unsuspecting, and when she got to the entrance of her house, called out to the larva as she was wont to do. But no one answered, and the woman exclaimed:

"Oh, they have thrown my dear child out of the house". And she burst into tears and went into the house weeping.

There were once a father owl and a mother owl with their children, and the children were big enough to go out hunting already. Some of the bigger ones were out hunting marmot, while the younger ones remained at home. Then said the old father and mother owl:

"Children, look out and see if you cannot see your big brothers coming home with a marmot."

The children went out and looked about, and sure enough, they came in and said:

"Here come our brothers, each dragging a marmot".

Then said the old owl to his wife:

"Where is the dog's harness?"

"It is lying down there beside the passage" answered his wife. "But one of the breast straps is missing. I was going to mend it yesterday, but I forgot."

Then the old owl raised his voice and cried:

"What were you so busy with yesterday to make you so forgetful?"

And here ends this story, which shows that the owls talk, live and quarrel among themselves just like human beings.

Once in the winter a man was out walking. And he came to a village. He was a shaman, and therefore went in to the people there without fear. There was only one house, and when he entered it, ​there lay the old father very ill. In the course of the visit, the sick man's wife gave the shaman two caribou skins, and asked if he could not help her husband to get better. The shaman called up his helping spirits, and afterwards, the sick man said he felt better. In the evening, the shaman went back to his own village, and when he got home, he laid the skins that had been given him in payment on top of the passage way to the house. He went into the house and told what had happened, and asked his wife to fetch in the skins. The woman could not find them, and came in and asked her husband to help her to look for them, but all they found was two lemming skins. The man could not understand what had happened, and next day, he went off with his wife, following his tracks of the day before, to the village he had visited. They came to the spot where the village and the house had been, but all they found was a fox's earth; there was nothing else. The shaman had visited foxes in human form.

Two musk oxen, both bulls, were discovered and pursued by human beings, and endeavoured to escape. The dogs were sent after them, and the musk oxen ran up to the top of a hill, and one of them then suddenly began talking like a human being:

"My dear little cousin, the dogs are after us. Let us try to get up to the top of a mountain".

The musk oxen took to flight once more and came to the top of a mountain and placed themselves back to back, ready to meet the dogs. At first the hunters were afraid, and dared not approach, but later they took courage and killed them.

This, it is said, was the first time musk oxen were ever killed by human beings, who were formerly afraid to hunt them.

There was once a village where the people were dying of starvation. At last there were only two women left alive, and they managed to exist by eating each other's lice. When all the rest were dead, they left their village and tried to save their lives. They reached the dwellings of men, and told how they had kept themselves alive simply by eating lice. But no one in that village would believe what ​they said, thinking rather that they must have lived on the dead bodies of their neighbours. And thinking this to be the case, they killed the two women. They killed them and cut them open to see what was inside them; and lo, not a single scrap of human flesh was there in the stomachs; they were full of lice. But now all the lice suddenly came to life, and this time they had wings, and flew out of the bellies of the dead women and darkened the sky.

Thus mosquitoes first came.

A bear was out walking, and there sat an owl on its hill. The bear came up to the owl. Then the owl spoke up and said:

"Old wanderer, are you out walking as usual, out wandering again?"

The bear answered:

"You that always stand straight up like a pillar, are you standing there staring as usual?"

Again the owl said:

"Old wanderer, out walking again, walking, walking?"

The bear did not bother to say more, but started up suddenly to catch the owl. But the owl spread its wings and flew away.

There was a woman who was often scolded by her husband. At last she grew tired of it, and went off with her little son in her amaut. She walked all day, and when evening came, she came to the dwelling of a pair of wolves in human form. She was well received, and entertained with suet and caribou steaks. After the meal, they lay down to rest. They were all lying down, when the woman heard the wolf say of his wife:

"Where shall we put her? Shall we lay her up on top or underneath?"

At these words the woman struck her child, to make it cry. At first she tried to make it cry in the house, but as she did not succeed in this, she took the child out again to quiet it. She was outside for a little while, then she came in again, and so she kept on. Meantime, she was looking about to see which was the best way to escape. At ​last she fixed on the way to go, and set off. She walked all night, and next day came to a house where there lived bears in human form. She went into the house, which was empty, and got up on the bench and hid at the back behind the skin hangings. Here she remained, and towards evening the bears came home. They sat down to eat, and from her hiding place she noticed that one of them, an old bear, had had one of its back teeth knocked loose, so that it hung half out of its mouth. And the old bear now told his house-mates that he had that day tried to bite a bearded seal to death, but it had been so strong that it had pulled one of his teeth loose.

Suddenly the little child began calling out for its father, and the woman was so frightened that she strangled it at once. The bears listened a moment, thinking they had heard something, but soon went on again as if nothing had happened, and one of them began again:

"Today I stole up to one of the 'Stand-uprights'; one of those creatures that stand straight up like a tent pole, and killed him. It was great fun."

By 'stand upright' and 'tent pole' the bear meant a human being, because human beings walk upright.

At these words an old bear joined in and said:

"You should not speak so carelessly of those that walk upright. They are dangerous, when they throw their weapons at us. If they were to find this hut of ours, they would break in and kill us."

In the evening, when they had finished telling their hunting stories, they went to rest. The bears lay down on the bench, but there was one of them that could not quite find room, and that was the one lying where the woman had hidden. So it kicked out at the skins at the foot end to make more room, but though it hurt most dreadfully, the woman set her teeth and took care not to utter a sound.

The bears slept all through the night, and next morning, some of them went out hunting, while others remained at home to get their boots dried. But the bears who had stayed behind were restless, as if they were afraid of something, and at last they put on their boots and went off after the others.

As soon as the house was empty, the woman came out from her hiding place, laid the strangled child in among the bears' bedclothes, and ran off home. She came home and told what had happened, and the people at once made ready to attack the bears in their lair. The bears came home and found the dead child among their sleeping rugs, and were very much afraid. They knew now that there would be human beings coming to attack them, and therefore hurried away from their house.

​And thus it came about that the men who went to seek out the bears in their lair found it empty.

There was once a man who had two wives. In summer he did not go out hunting caribou, but made do with walrus, bearded seal and fjord seal. One of his wives at last began to envy all the people who went hunting caribou in summer, and so one day she said:

"It is said that the people of Nerránâq have got a number of caribou. What sort of a husband is this of ours? Here are we simply getting our clothes in a mess with blubber and grease."

The winter was at an end, and spring had come, when the man asked his wives to make him some kamiks. So his wives made him some kamiks, and when the spring was fairly come, and the kamiks were finished, the man went off up inland. He stayed away all the summer.

It was nearing autumn when he came in sight of a great lake. There it lay, sometimes white, sometimes black and sometimes red. It was shadows cast by children at play. It was their clothes, reflected in the lake. He waited until evening, and then he went down. He stole up to the tent farthest out, and saw a married woman sitting inside. Her husband was not at home. So he went in, laid his knife in front of the woman and said:

"I will give this in payment if I may have something."

The woman took the knife, and then hid her guest at the back of the bench and hung up his kamiks to dry.

In the course of the evening, many people came to visit her, and always they said as they came in:

"There is a smell of human beings in Uviarasugiaq's house."

It was late in the evening when at last her husband came home. The first thing he said when he came in was:

"There is a smell of human beings in here."

At this the woman picked up the knife which the stranger had given her, and said:

"Hide it, hide it, hide it." And then she began howling like a wolf.

Later in the evening, when they were going to rest, they let their guest come out in order to give him something to eat. The master of the house now declared that there was no one in the village whom he feared; his guest might then be quite at ease.

​After the meal, they took out some caribou skins, many beautiful skins, and arranged a dress which their guest could take with him when he left.

The guest stayed a whole day in that place. On the day after, when evening had fallen once more, and the people had gone to rest, The set off. The man accompanied his guest a good part of the way, and then turned back and went home; the other went on homewards, in like wise. So far had he to go that it was winter when at last he reached home. When he got home, he let his wives and several of the neighbours make new garments for themselves of the skins he had brought with him. But one of those in the village, who had not been given any caribou skin, was envious, and decided to go off himself and visit the wolf people. Others tried to dissuade him, but in vain.

He set out, and walked and walked and went on walking and came at last to the dwellings of the wolf people. He went into the first hut he saw, without troubling to look about him. Then he did the same as the first man had done. He took out his knife, laid it on the floor, and said:

"If anyone here will give me something, I have this to give in return."

But hardly had the man laid down his knife when the wolf people fell upon him and tore him to pieces. Thus it fared with the envious one, who insisted on going though others had sought to dissuade him. He was eaten up.

It is said that Kâkuarshuk only hunted at the blowholes by night. One day when he was out after seal, there came a bear, and stood by the shelter wall the man had built close to the blowhole, and said to him:

"Seat yourself on top of me."

Kâkuarshuk was so frightened that he at once seated himself on the bear, but the bear said quite calmly:

"Bring your hunting things with you."

Kâkuarshuk laid his hunting implements on top of the bear, and the bear trotted off with him. The bear went out towards the sea, in the direction of the ice edge. As soon as they came to open water, the bear told Kâkuarshuk to get down, and when he stood on the ice, the bear said to him:

"First you must make water."

​Then the bear plunged into the water and told Kâkuarshuk to climb on its back again, and said also:

"Close your eyes, get a good grip of my fur, and lay your head against my shoulders."

Then the bear swam off. At first one could hear from the shoulderblades how hard the bear was working, but after a little while there was no longer anything to be heard. The bear at first swam straight out to sea, but after a little while it changed its course and turned in towards land. Now Kâkuarshuk no longer heard the sound of the water, they were moving quietly forward. Again some time elapsed, and then Kaknarshuk seemed to feel the bear clambering up on shore, and to hear its footsteps creaking in the snow.

"Now you may open your eyes," said the bear. Kâkuarshuk opened his eyes and discovered that it was now moonlight, and the moon shone on a great number of tracks. There were also sledge tracks to be seen. They followed the sledge tracks, and soon came in sight of people running about at play. They went towards the people, and as soon as the latter saw them coming, they came forward to meet them. The newcomers made straight for Kâkuarshuk and would have attacked him, but the bear who was with him struck them with a little stick and kept them off. When they came over by the house, the bear took off his bearskin coat and went in with his guest. Meantime, the man sat and waited for the bear. Then they came into a big, light house. Here Kâkuarshuk stayed as a guest. They went out hunting, going from the village to hunt at the blowholes, but at first Kâkuarshuk did not go with the others; not until he had grown accustomed to the bear folk and was no longer afraid of them did he go with the rest, and then he often got a seal. Whenever Kâkuarshuk got a seal, the others all came gallopping up to him and were given some of the meat. If he got a seal and the people were very hungry, they would run up to his catch with such a ravening speed that he only wanted to get away.

Kâkuarshuk had been there a long time before he grew so accustomed to them that he could begin to go visiting in their houses. When Kâkuarshuk began to go visiting, his foster-father said to him:

"You must keep away from that house there farthest off. The man who lives there is a dangerous man, who often kills people."

Afterwards it happened that the dangerous man always wanted to go out hunting when Kâkuarshuk was of the party, and therefore his foster-father forbade Kâkuarshuk to go to the blowholes, for he was afraid the Dangerous One was only waiting for a chance to kill him. But Kâkuarshuk kept on begging his foster-father to let him go with the rest, and plagued him so that at last he was allowed to go. ​One day they were out hunting when the dangerous bear suddenly came running towards Kâkuarshuk with jaws agape. Kâkuarshuk snatched up his harpoon, and when the bear came up to him, he sprang aside and thrust the harpoon deep into its body. Then he ran off home at full speed. As soon as he came home, he told what had happened, and his foster-father said to him:

"Good, good; it was a good thing you struck down the Dangerous One first."

Evening came, and they went to rest. Next morning, before it was yet light, a voice called in through the window:

"Come outside a little, Kâkuarshuk!"

"Do not go out whatever you do," said his foster-father.

Then the voice from without cried again, but this time less loudly:

"Come outside a little, Kâkuarshuk!"

This time, the foster-father told Kâkuarshuk he had better go out a little, as he was afraid the bear might come in, and Kâkuarshuk went out believing he was now to be killed. But all that happened was, that when Kâkuarshuk came out, there stood the bear he had just wounded, and handed him back his harpoon, smiling all over its face. The dangerous bear afterwards became a good neighbour, and Kâkuarshuk resumed his old habits and went out hunting with the other men and visited them in their houses, without need to go in fear of anyone. And all the bears were fond of him, because he was an active and courageous man, as skilful at catching seal as any bear.

There were once a bear and its wife and their two childen, that came in human form to visit a village. After they had got there, they set about building a snow hut. While their parents were building the house, the children, a brother and a sister, went visiting about the village. In the course of their visits there was a man who asked them:

"What is the name of your father?"

"Bear," answered the boy.

"And what is your mother's name?"

"Mouth."

"What then is your brother called?"

"Hide."

"And you yourself?"

"I am called Miserly."

During the night, the bears felt anxious lest the human beings ​should attack them, now they had learned who they were, and so they fled away before the people of the village were awake.

There was once a vixen that married a hare, and afterwards, when they were living together, it was always the wife who hunted game for her husband, he himself never cared to go out hunting. The hare, thinking it was too bad that his wife should always go hunting on his behalf, at last suggested that she should go away and leave him, for he feared lest his own wife should at last go hungry, and that through his own fault. But the vixen would not leave her husband. At last the hare himself decided to go away, and so he did, not caring to live merely as an eater up of food procured by another. But the little vixen, who was very fond of him, burst into tears, and sang a song:

Once a raven and a loon happened to meet, and they agreed to tattoo each other. First the raven tattooed the loon, and when it was done, the loon set about tattooing the raven. But the raven was very ill pleased with its tattooing, and would not keep still, and again and again the loon said:

"If you wont keep still, I will pour the soot I am using all over you."

At last the loon lost patience, and poured all the soot over the raven, and then ran out of the house. But just as the loon was on ​the point of disappearing, the raven picked up the fire stones that lay in the house and threw them at the loon. The fire stones struck the loon on the thighs, and it sank down and could hardly walk.

From that day all ravens are black, and all loons awkward on their feet.

An owl was out hunting one day when it caught sight of two hares sitting close together. The owl came down on the hares from above, gliding down slowly and noiselessly on its wings, and when it was just over them, it grabbed at them both at once. The hares leapt up in a fright and ran opposite ways, but the owl had got its claws fixed in their flesh and could not get them out again. And such was the strength of the hares that they tore both thighs from the owl, as they ran their different ways, and the thighs went with them as they ran away.

So it came about that the owl caused its own death.

An owl once caught sight of a little marmot, that was out looking for food, and so it placed itself at the entrance to the marmot's lair and waited there.

The owl did not kill the marmot, but called out to his family:

"I have barred the entrance to a creature's lair; come and fetch it, with the best sledges and the best dogs."

When the owl had cried out thus, the marmot turned to it and said:

"Now that you are going to eat me up, going to eat my chops and smack your lips over my kidney suet, you might show your satisfaction by dancing for me a little. But you must look up to the highest part of the sky, spread your legs wide apart and bend down properly as for a real song and dance." The owl did so, and when it had begun dancing, the marmot sang:

​

But the moment the owl spread its legs wide apart and began dancing, the marmot slipped in between its legs and disappeared down into its hole.

Then shrieked the owl:

And then it called down to the marmot:

"Don't be afraid, you can come out again, I wont hurt you."

"What can he be thinking of, that fellow up there?" said the marmot to his wife. "He had better go away."

But his wife answered:

"I think I will go out to him. You heard what he said, that he would not hurt us."

"Well go out then if you like, and let him first kiss your genitals," said the husband marmot. And here ends this story.

A caribou came slowly down wind, grazing as it went, when it met a bear, and when they met, they spoke to each other in this wise. The caribou was the first to speak, and it said: "Let us try pulling arms."

The bear looked at it a little, and then said:

"Oh, I am afraid I shall break your upper arm."

The caribou answered:

"I can use it without fear of breaking it. Let us try."

The bear looked once more at the other's forelegs, and then said:

"No, we have better not, I am afraid of breaking it."

The caribou answered:

"I often run at a gallop, and I am never afraid of breaking my forelegs."

So they set to and began pulling arms. At first they did as men do when pulling arms, to show their confidence and give their oppo​nent a chance; they each stretched out an arm now and again towards the other. But at last the bear dared not do so any more, and kept his arm in the same position all the time. Then the caribou began to pull, and very slowly, straightened out the bear's foreleg with such force that it tore the skin and flesh from the whole of the upper arm and broke the bone.

Wild with pain and shame, the bear bit at its opponent, but the caribou had already made a great leap and was gone.

There was once a raven that married wild geese. It took two wild geese to wife.

When the time came for the wild geese to go off to their own country, where there is no winter, they begged the raven stay behind, fearing lest the way should be too long for him. They told him how they flew over lands far away and distant one from another, and they explained:

"The way we have to fly is so long that you will grow tired; you had better stay behind, and when we come back, we can meet again."

But the raven was so fond of its wives that it would not part from them, and when the day came for them to set out, it went with them. Off they flew towards the south. Soon the wild geese were so far ahead of the raven that it could not see them at all, then again it could just make out where they were. Sometimes they flew away from him, sometimes he would overtake them a little, and when at last the wild geese grew tired and sat down on the surface of the sea to rest, the raven managed to come up with them, but had to keep hovering in the air above them, and could not get any rest itself. As soon as the geese had rested, they went on again. The raven followed after. Then again the wild geese grew tired and sat down on the water to rest, and once more the raven hovered in the air above them. As soon as the wild geese had rested sufficiently, they flew on again. This happened four times; four times they sat down on the water to rest, and four times they flew on again when they had rested enough. Then, when they settled down on the water for the fifth time, the raven had grown so tired that it could do no more, and said to its wives:

"Wives, place yourselves close together."

And the wives placed themselves close together on the water, and ​the raven sat on top of them. But it was afraid of the water, and kept on saying:

"Dear wives, do keep close together."

After a short rest, they flew on again, and when the wild geese once more wanted to rest, they did as before; the raven's two wives placed themselves close together, and the raven sat down on top of them. But it clutched at their necks so hard that all the feathers were worn away. Their brothers noticed it, and were afraid their sisters might freeze to death if they lost their feathers, so they said to them later on, when the raven had dropped behind and was far away:

"Next time he comes and begs you to sit close together so that he can sit on top of you, wait till he has settled himself comfortably and then swim suddenly apart."

It was not long before the raven came, and cried pitifully to his wives:

"Place yourselves close together, wives, place yourselves close together." And the wild geese placed themselves close together, but the moment the raven sat down on them, they suddenly swam apart, and the raven fell into the sea. It called after the wild geese in despair:

"Oh, come and help me, come and hold my chest above water." But no one heeded the raven's words, and so it was left behind far out at sea.

There were once four young girls who had nearly reached an age to be married; they played together, pretending they had to choose a husband.

One of them saw a whale spouting out at sea, and said: "That shall be my husband." And so it came about. Another of the girls caught sight of a sea-scorpion lying in shallow water, and said: "That shall be my husband." And so it came about. A third found a stone, which she thought very handsome, and she said: "This shall be my husband." And so it came about. The fourth, saw an eagle hovering high in the air, and said: "That eagle shall be my husband." And so it came about.

The girl who wanted to marry the whale was taken and carried off by a whale and brought to an island, and here on this island the ​whale made a house for the girl of its own bones, a house of whale's bones^[1] and gave her food of its own maktak and its own flesh.

The whale was so fond of its wife, and so afraid lest she should run away, that it would never let her go out, not even to make water. And he kissed her so often, and lay with her so often, that maktak skin began to form about her nose and genitals.

The girl's parents knew quite well that she was out on the island, and went out there themselves now and again, but as they could not get hold of her, they always had to go back home without having accomplished their errand.

The girl knew that her parents were in the habit of coming to the island to try to carry her off home with them, and one day when she was expecting them, she asked her husband to let her go outside and make water, and something more. When she said this, the whale answered: "You can make water in my mouth, and if there is anything more you can do it in my hand."

But at last one day it chanced that the whale gave his wife leave to go out on condition that she was tethered to a line. She tied the line to a bone, a whale's bone, that lay outside the house, and then said to the bone:

"When my husband inside there asks you if I have done making water, and the rest of it, all you have to do is to answer in my voice: 'No, I have not yet finished, I have not finished yet!'"

Then she ran as hard as she could down to her parents' umiᴀq, which lay close up to the beach waiting for her. The girl had not been gone long when the whale began tugging impatiently at the line, and called out:

"Have you not yet finished making water, and all the rest of it?"

And the bone to which the line was fastened answered:

"No, I have not finished yet."

A little while after the whale tugged at the line again, and only now did it discover that it was not the girl, but a bone, it was tugging at. Then it rushed but of the house, gathered up all its bones, so that it became a whale again, and set off in chase of the fugitives, who were already far away. But in its haste, it forgot its hip bones.

The whale rapidly overtook the umiᴀq, and those on board, in their fright, threw the wife's outer coat into the sea. The whale came up to the garment, and flung itself upon it, and the boat drew a little way ahead while it was busy with that. Then it took up the pursuit again, and now they threw out one of her boots. The kamik again ​delayed the whale for some little time, and then they threw out the other one, and then her breeches. The breeches, which smelt of her body, kept the whale back so long that the boat got far ahead, and reached the shore, running in with such force that it dashed up on land, over two high terraces on the beach. The whale, following close behind, made after it at such speed that it cleared one of the heights, but stopped a little way behind the boat, and the moment it got on shore, it died. So the whale lost, because it had forgotten its hip bones.

But the girl who married a sea scorpion was carried off and stowed away under a stone, and there she stayed and was never found again.

The little girl who married a stone was herself turned into a stone, and as she was turning into a stone, she sang this song:

She sang one more verse, but the moment she mentioned her heart, which had now also turned into stone, she died.

The little girl that married an eagle was also carried off, and placed on the top of a high mountain. The eagle was a skilful hunter, and often caught small caribou calves, and his wife had plenty of food and plenty of warm skins. The girl found out that her kinsfolk were coming in an umiᴀq to see her, and now she began plaiting a long line of caribou sinews. She lived on a high cliff falling sheer away down to the sea, and when the line she had plaited was so long that she thought it would reach right down, she made up her mind to try. One day when the eagle was out hunting, the umiᴀq came to the bird cliff, and she fastened the line of caribou sinews to the rock and lowered herself down. But the cliff was so high that in lowering herself down she scraped all the skin from the palms of her hands and the inner side of her thighs. But the umiᴀq sailed home with her to her own village.

It was not long before the eagle came flying along, and when it stood above the house, it raised a storm with its wings. It remained hovering above the village and the men called up to it:

"Eagle, let us see what a handsome fellow you are; spread your wings wide!"

The eagle did so, and the girl's kinsmen shot off their arrows: they struck it under the wings, and it fell down dead.

There lay the eagle and rotted away, and so big was it, that when its huge head had lost all the flesh and only the skull remained, dogs crept into it to litter, and brought forth their young inside the skull.

And here ends this story.

​

It is said that Atungait determined to travel round the world, and therefore set about carefully breeding dogs. They would have to be strong and of great endurance. When he thought the dogs were as they should be, he decided to go up a steep mountain, that was close by their village, and he said:

"If I can manage to climb this steep cliff face near our village, I will set out. If not, I will stay at home."

He set off on his way, and climbed the cliff without the slightest difficulty. Then he called from the top to his dogs which stood down below at the foot. The dogs came up at once, and with those which had been chosen for the journey there came also one that had received no special training. This dog, which was not specially hardened to strength and endurance, came halfway up the cliff, but then it slipped, and fell down and was killed. Atungait assembled his team on top of the cliff and drove off. He travelled night and day at one spell without resting, and when many days and many nights had passed, he came to a people that were lame from the hips, and they had a curious throwing game, a red and a white ajagᴀq. These lame folk all had sledges. Atungait soon grew tired of staying with them, and wishing to possess this curious throwing game, he cut through the lashings of the cross bars on all the sledges, and then going into the house, took the red game and drove away. The lame folk tried to set out in pursuit, but all their sledges fell to pieces, all save one that Atungait har forgotten when cutting the lashings of the rest, and this one drove after him. It was a long time before it overtook him, but at last it did, and Atungait then, turning round, shot the leader of the lame driver's team with his arrow. The dog with the arrow in its body then ran off away from the sledge tracks, and took the rest of the team with it, and the lame driver as well, for he could not get down from the sledge. It went on and on until it came right out to the edge of the ice; here it flung itself into the water with all the other dogs, and they were all drowned, the lame man and all his dogs.

Atungait then travelled on, night and day in one, until at last he came to a steep cliff, a precipice, where there was no way round. The ice had gathered round the steep rock, and it was impossible to go farther. Atungait then drove his team out into the open water, and they swam along with him and the sledge. Once or twice, when they came to places which he thought they would never manage to pass, he closed his eyes, but opened them again immediately. So Atungait drove round the steep cliff and continued his journey.

​One day he came to a big village, but the people who lived there were dangerous. They wanted to kill him, and therefore Atungait trayelled on again without stopping to sleep. He travelled on again, night and day in one, and came to a glacier. There was no other way to go, so he drove up into the ice. It was steep and smooth, and at all the places where there was a sheer descent, it was only his dogs that saved him from being dashed down, for they had long, sharp claws and did not slip on the smooth ice.

Thus Atungait managed to cross the ice and travelled on, night and day in one; and it is said that he travelled right round the world. But how he came home again to his own village nobody knows. And therefore I end the story here.

Agdlumaloqâq told his fellow-villagers that the places where he went hunting every day at the blowholes were so far far away from their customary hunting grounds that it was like hunting in a far, foreign land. But nobody believed him. And since nobody would believe him, he invited one of the neighbours to go with him to the place where The generally went. They set off very early in the morning, but it was dark before they got to the hunting ground. During the night they passed two small cracks in the ice. It was now well on in the night, and they still kept on. Then they came to a piece of land, crossed over that, and went on over the ice on the farther side. Here at last they came to a blowhole, and Agdlumaloqâq made ready his implements and prepared to wait until a seal should come up to breathe. Towards morning, Agdlumaloqâq got a seal, and they now prepared to set off home with it. Agdlumaloqâq proposed that they should go home together, without waiting for his companion to try his luck; for, he said, if the other once got a seal to drag behind him, he would be unable to keep up all the long way home. But his companion would not believe this, and said he would first try what he could get himself.

Agdlumaloqâq then hurried off home alone, and arrived on the same day he had caught the seal. Now that he was alone, he got along quickly. But the whole day passed, and his companion did not return. At last several days had passed, and still he had not returned.

It happened in this wise with his companion: he had got a seal, and had set off homewards with that seal, and had gone on day after day and at last he had eaten up the whole seal, and was now near ​dying of hunger. At last he came back to his village, half dead with hunger. And now at last the unbelieving neighbours understood that Agdlumaloqâq had been telling the thruth when he said he was wont to hunt in a far, foreign land.

In the spring, when the young seal were moving close in along the coast, the men of one large village used to go out hunting them in kayaks. There were many men, and when they came home from their hunting, it was their custom to play at·aujᴀ·q (a ball game, in which the players take sides, those of one side throwing to their fellows and trying to keep the ball from those of the other).

A little boy used to go over to where they were playing, but whenever he came up to them, they cut the tails off his coat. (kukup·ᴀ·q is the name for a child's dress which is cut in precisely the same fashion as that of adults, with tails of fur hanging down front and back: otherwise, children when quite small generally wear a tunic cut straight off round the waist).

The little boy's grandmother often told them not to do it, because she had no more skin to mend his coat with, but no one paid any heed to what she said, and as they kept on cutting off the tails of the little boy's coat, the old grandmother at last hit on a remedy. She softened the skin from the head of a young seal and pulled it over the boy's face and head. She then spoke magic words over him so as to make him a seal, and then by means of other magic words made him dive down through a hollow in the bench, so that he came out by that mysterious road into the sea, and then she said to the boy: "One day, when the kayaks appear off the coast outside our village coming to hunt young seal, you must dive down through this hollow, and come out this way into the sea, and then you must show yourself in front of the kayaks, and as soon as they see you, swim on ahead of them, now and then diving under water, but always keeping out to sea. When you have got a little way out, you must clap your hands and feet together and cry: "uɳa·, uɳa·!"

One day, when the kayaks were out as usual hunting young seal, the old woman set her grandchild out into the sea, and the boy, coming up in front of the men in the guise of a little seal, led them on and on out to sea, and so eager were the men in their hunting that they did not notice the seal was leading them far out to sea. Only when the ​boy suddenly began clapping hands and feet together, and crying out "uɳa·, uɳa·" did the men discover how far out to sea they had come.

The kayaks now hurried at full speed in towards land, but just then it came on to blow. It blew a gale, one kayak after another capsized, and at last one man named Kivioq was the only one left. A heavy sea arose, and the waves towered so high that Kivioq, when a wave came, thought it was land in sight.

"There is the land, there is the land", said he to himself, but then the wave slipped away and vanished, and there was no land. There was nothing to be done. Kivioq drifted on, carried by the wind and the waves, but at last he came to shore. He rowed on along the shore. He saw a house, a shelter, built of turf and stones. He looked in through the smoke hole in the roof, and caught sight of an old woman scraping a skin. Kivioq spat down through the hole to attract her attention, and the moment he did so, the woman looked up and cut off a piece of her cheek with her knife, saying as she did so:

"That cloud that overshadowed me must have been very near!"

But Kivioq was so terrified at what she had done that he ran away.

Kivioq rowed on again and went on shore at another place, where he again caught sight of a house. He looked in, and when he was asked to come in, he went in. His clothes were wet, and the woman in the house offered to dry them for him. Kivioq clambered up on to the bench, pulled off his kamiks, and let her dry them. While he was lying on the bench, a meat fork suddenly appeared from the space under the bench, and began stabbing at him. He jumped up, and grasped at his kamiks, but could not get hold of them, because the drying frame rose up in the air, so that he could not reach them.

"Give me my kamiks, I want my kamiks on, I dare not stay here any longer, because a meat fork from under the bench comes and stabs at me, and because the drying frame rises up in the air when I reach out after my kamiks" said Kivioq to the woman in the house.

But the woman answered:

"It was I who hung up your kamiks to dry, and surely you can reach up to take them down".

At this Kivioq began saying a magic prayer:

"Bear, bear, come and eat up this woman!"

And a little while after they could hear a bear coming through the house; its growling came nearer and nearer. And Kivioq said again:

"Do give me my kamiks".

"I hung them up, so I should think you ought to be able to take them down," said the woman again.

Then Kivioq asked for his kamiks a third time, and now they ​could hear the bear growling out in the passage. At this the woman grew frightened, and took down the kamiks and said:

"Here are your kamiks, here are your stockings."

Kivioq pulled on his kamiks and ran out into the passage. It closed up after him, but he was so quick that only the tail of his coat was caught and cut off. He ran down to his kayak, hurried into it and pushed off. Just then the woman came out from her house and said to him:

"With this knife of mine I came near to cutting you up."

Kivioq lifted his bladder dart, and threatened the woman, crying:

"I nearly harpooned you with this!"

The woman was so frightened at this that she sat down suddenly and dropped her knife, which rolled into the sea, and at once a thin sheet of ice formed on the water.

When the ice came spreading over the sea, Kivioq said a magic prayer, and a way opened in the ice before him, and he rowed on. He rowed along the shore, until he caught sight of a great tent. Then he came in to shore and went up to the place. A woman and her daughter lived there, and Kivioq stayed with them. He took the daughter to wife, and was wont to lie with her.

Outside the house there lay a piece of wood. Sometimes one could hear, while inside the house, a sound like teeth chattering. Then the old woman went out and fetched in the piece of wood, and when she laid it down, the wood shivered, and made a noise just like the chattering of teeth. This piece of wood was the woman's husband. There were a couple of large knots on the outside. Every morning the woman would take hold of it by the knots and carry it down to the water. Then it floated out to sea and came home in the afternoon with seals it had laid up on the knots. In this way it hunted and brought home meat for the woman.

The two women had a great number of beads, and Kivioq got them to make him a lot of mittens, and had all of them decorated with a border of bead work. Then he took the mittens with him and hid them far away, and when he came home again, he got them to make him some more.

Kivioq came to be very fond of his young wife, and was therefore very much surprised when he came home one day and found only one of the women. Her face was exactly like that of his wife, but her body was shrunken and bony. Thus he discovered that it was the old woman who had killed her daughter and pulled her skin on over her own. Kivioq then left that place, and went home to his own village. He rowed and rowed and at last recognised his own village, and when he recognised it, he fell to singing:

​"asixai, asixai" (untranslatable).

Up in the village, people heard the song and the cry, and Kivioq's wife said:

"Kivioq is the only man who ever calls out "asixai, asixai!"

So Kivioq came home, and in his joy at having found his wife again, he let his neighbours share among themselves all the beads her had brought with him in his mittens.

Navaranâq, an Eskimo girl, was adopted as a child by the Indians. And it was a habit of hers to excite illfeeling among the Indians against her own countrymen, saying that the Eskimos wished to kill all the Indians.

One day, when it was blowing from the south-west, and the ice was setting in towards land, the people of Navaranâq's old village went out hunting at the blowholes.

Navaranâq said to the Indians:

"When the wind is in that quarter, and the ice is setting in towards land, my countrymen generally go out hunting."

As soon as the Indians heard this, they made ready for battle and set off. On arriving at the village, they tore open the windows and stabbed the women to death through the window openings. The women then hit upon the plan of setting fire to their sleeping rugs, and this sent up such a stench and smoke that the Indians could not see. They had then to go in through the passage, and when they came in, there was a woman who bit an Indian's thumb so fiercely that she bit it off, and the Indian fell down and died. The Indians went on murdering, and when they thought there were no more left, they went off home. But there was one that had hidden in a dog kennel made of snow, and had closed up the entrance afterwards with snow, so they did not find her.

The men of the Eskimo village came home from their hunting, and could not make out where their women had gone. The woman who had hidden in the dog kennel was the only one who came out to meet them, and she told them what had happened. The men at once all made ready for an attack upon the Indians.

On arriving at the Indians' camp, all the Eskimos placed themselves in front of the windows and called in to them:

​"Is there a woman here named Navaranâq?"

Navanaranâq, thinking no harm, called out at once:

"Here I am, here I am!" And she went out to the men. They caught her by the arms and carried her off, and dragged her so roughly that they pulled her arms out. But Navaranâq sang a song:

And then she fell down and died.

The Eskimos now went home, but after having again made ready for battle, they attacked the Indians. This time they killed all in the camp, and then went home. On the way they found many Indian children that had gone into hiding. They lay on the ground pretending to be dead. But the Eskimos tickled them round the belly, and when they showed signs of life, struck them on the head and killed them. When there were but a few Indian children left alive, they drove these on ahead of them towards their village. The Indian children soon grew tired, and started moaning:

"Our legs, our tired legs. We also are accustomed to go out on hunting expeditions, but those who go on ahead at first are allowed to rest until the ones behind come up."

But every time the Indian children complained, they were struck on the head and killed. At last there were but two of them left, a brother and sister, and they reached the village alive. There they were kept as adopted children, and soon grew up and grew big, and the brother became a great hunter. All were fond of the young Indian, because he was skilful, and brought in much meat to the village. One day when they were standing about outside, they invited him to shoot at a dog with his bow and arrows. The young Indian would not shoot at the dog, but the men kept on urging him to do so, until at last he shot an arrow at it. He hit the dog and killed it. Then at once he fled away up inland, though all cried out to him to stay, and not to trouble about the dog, but the Indian continued his flight and disappeared up inland.

A man once came to the dwelling of the dangerous nakasuɳnaicut. He went into a house, where there was plenty of room. A dog lay in the passage, with a litter of pups, and when it turned upon him as if ​to spring at him, he hurried into the house. Inside the house sat a woman cooking bear's meat, but among the pieces of meat in the pot he espied the forearm of a human being, with tattoo marks on it.

The woman said to him:

"Do you like bear's meat, or would you rather have human flesh?"

When he had eaten some bear's meat, he made ready to go, for he was very anxious and afraid, but the woman said:

"You need not be afraid. My sons will not hurt you."

The man was still sitting there when a young man came running into the house. His nostrils quivered, as he said:

"Smell of human flesh, smell of human flesh."

But his mother said: "There is no human flesh to smell here. It must be me you can smell."

And turning to her guest, she said:

"Now I suppose he has gone out to tell all the neighbours."

A little while after there came a creaking in the snow outside, and now the woman's sons came in, and she said to them:

"Here is a human being. He was very anxious and afraid, so I have hidden him away."

The two sons said:

"If there is a human being here, then let him come out." And the mother led the man forth from his hiding place, and her sons sniffed at him and smelt him and were glad he had not been killed. The sons said to the man:

"In a little while a big, strong, dangerous man will come in. He wil say something about how he longs for a good rich dish of meat, and he will challenge you to fight."

And the two sons gave the guest two stones, and said:

"Now when this man comes in through the passage singing, you must hit him with these two stones, first on one ear and then on the other, but be sure you do not miss. If you do, then you yourself will be killed."

A little while after, the big man came in through the passage singing, and when he had got far enough for the guest to see his ears, he threw the stones at him, and struck him on the ears, so that he fell down dead in the passage. He was at once dragged out and cut up, and part of the meat from the breast brought into the house.

A little later a youth came in, carrying part of the backbone and the head. He carried the head on one finger, stuck in at the base of the neck, and this youth then said:

"I thought father was thin. But there was suet round his kidneys all the same."

Towards evening, the woman's two sons said to their guest:

​"This evening, when it is dark, you had better go out and cut the lashings of all the sledges." And he did so, but one sledge he forgot to cut. Towards morning, before it was light, he fled away from the village. One sledge overtook him. When it was near enough for him to reach the man's dogs with his arrow, he shot down the leader, and the team being then without leader, the driver could no longer keep them under control, and the dogs dashed off with him right out to the edge of the ice and over into the sea, and both man and dogs were drowned.

But the man came safely home to his own village and told of all that had happened to him among the nakasuɳnaicut.

Two men hunting at the edge of the ice were carried out to sea. They drifted about in the open sea, tried many a time to get in to shore, and when at last they succeeded, they were a great way from their village. They found some people in those parts, but they were not good people; they were evil and dangerous ones, and though one of the men proposed that they should make themselves known all the same, the other insisted that it was too risky, and so they went on again every time.

Once they came to a village out on a headland. The people here were skilful hunters, going out in skin boats that were driven with great speed. Here the two men could not resist the desire to make themselves known, and so they did.

But before doing so, they first hid close to the village in order to learn a little more about the people. The men used to go out all together to their hunting, so that the women were left behind alone.

One day when all the men were out, one of the two companions went down to the village and made himself known. But hardly had the men come back from their hunting and caught sight of the stranger, when they fell upon him and killed him.

His companion stood looking on, but did nothing. Not until all the men had gone out hunting again did he go down to the village, down to the women, to take vengeance for his companion. He flung himself upon the women and began murdering right and left, but when there were only a few remaining, he caught sight of the umiᴀq returning from a journey, and so he took to flight. The umiᴀq put ​in to shore, and the men in it went off in chase of the fugitive, and followed him for a long time, but at last all were tired, and only two kept up the pursuit. These also failed to overtake him, and therefore they too stopped, and cried out:

"When the young gulls are big enough to fly, you may expect us!"

The fugitive ran homewards at full speed. He came to a river, and began walking along the bank. Here he suddenly caught sight of two big people, a man and a woman, cutting up a caribou. He called out to them:

"Help me over this river!"

The two heard his voice. The man stayed by the caribou, the woman came down to the river, pulled her kamiks right up and began wading across. As soon as she had crossed the stream, she called the man to her, put him on her hand and waded back again across the river. Thus the man came over to the two giants, and the first thing they did was to put new soles into his kamiks; the soles were quite worn out, he had come so far. One day he said to the two giants:

"I long for my home, but now I do not know which way my own land lies. Perhaps you can tell me where it is?"

The two giants answered:

"Your land lies in the direction of the rising sun. You see those two peaks over there, far, far away; when you reach them, you can see your land from there." And they added:

"When we go that way ourselves, it generally takes us only a day to get to your land and back."

Then the man set out. He went on and on. It was autumn, and it passed into winter. Midwinter came, and he was still on the way homeward. At last he had reached so far that he began to pass snow huts on the road, but they were deserted. He slept in them now and again, and ate of the meat that was left behind. Once he came to a snow hut and found a great store of meat, so he stayed there to mend one of his kamiks. He wanted to make a good long journey the next day. While he was there mending his kamik, a sledge came up. He went out and saw two brothers who were out looking for the meat they had left behind. He joined company with them, and they went on homewards. As soon as they reached the village, one of the two brothers cried:

"We have found the man who was carried out to sea on the ice."

When they cried out thus, a woman came out from one of the snow huts and said:

"I was once married to a man who was carried out to sea on the ice."

​When the mother had uttered these words, one of the men looked more closely at the man they had brought to the village, and recogniced his father's teeth. The father had come, but his wife had married another man. The man went to his house and said to the one who was now married to his wife that he could stay there all the same, they could quite well both be married to the same woman; and he said he would be very glad to have him there, since it was he who had brought up his sons. The man now settled in his own village, but it was not long before people began to whisper that he must have killed the man who had been with him when they were carried out to sea.

"Wait a little while before you kill me; wait until the young gulls are ready to fly. And if no one has come by that time, then you can always kill me if you want to."

It was getting on towards autumn, and all through the spring the man was busy making arrows. At last he had quite filled two pairs of kamiks with arrows and nothing else. It was spring now, and summer came, and soon came the autumn, and the time was come when the young gulls were ready to fly. As soon as he had seen a young gull flying, he was always up in the hills on the look-out. Sometimes he would be away all day. At last one day he caught sight of three umiᴀqs. They came in towards the village at a great rate. Then he went down to his neighbours and called out: "

"Now your enemies are coming!"

All the men went down to the shore to meet the umiᴀqs, and when they were close to land, they began shooting their arrows out over them. They shot down all the biggest and all the strongest, and when only young men were left, these took to flight.

Thus the man who was carried out to sea on the ice saved his neighbours, though there was no one that would believe what he said.

Kukigaq was a terrible manslayer. He was so fond of killing people that no one who visited him ever escaped alive. Once a man and a woman came on a visit. In honour af their coming, Kukigaq built a very large snow hut. And this was because he now again desired to kill his guests. He had not yet managed to kill them, and they were still living as his guests, when he was suddenly attacked by some ​other people. When the attacking party approached, they sent an old woman who had never before undertaken any errand in vain, with a message to Kukigaq and his wife, bidding her say:

"There are some men coming to attack you, poor creatures they are seemingly of no great strength, men with ill-made weapons, men who could have no success in an attack."

The attacking party came up to the village and bade Kukigaq and his household come forth. It then appeared that the strangers had only brought with them the bows and arrows they used for shooting musk ox.

Kukigaq came out, and when he saw the company of men that had surrounded his house, he said:

"And I who had thought many men were coming to attack me. Why, there are not enough of you to darken the snow round my house."

"You and your party are not so many that you should wish your enemies to darken the snow round your snow hut."

Then they began shooting at one another with bows and arrows, and it was not long before Kukigaq had killed all his assailants. He himself had only received an arrow through the calf of his leg.

Kukigaq had gone back into his house when there came to visit him a woman who was unclean, and meant to harm him. Kukigaq lay crosswise on the sleeping place, one leg swollen with the wound. from the arrow. Kukigaq found it wearisome lying there, and was glad of the woman's coming, for he thought she came to help him pass away the time, and he said to his wife:

"I am glad this woman has come to visit me. Give her some suet from the bag. It is in the nature of us human beings to be distressed when one of ourselves, one of those near to us, is attacked, but when it is a stranger, we never trouble ourselves. If now it should chance that any came to attack you who are in the house here, you have none to help you in the state I am now in." And the tears welled up and sorrow overwhelmed him, because of the pain in his leg.

Kukigaq had no idea that it was an unclean woman who had come to visit him; and there is this about unclean women, that their mere presence is enough to kill a wounded man. And again Kukigaq spoke up and said:

"Not until I am dead is the arrow to be drawn out from my leg, and if I die, people need not be afraid of visiting me in my grave, for I have always been very fond of my fellow-men."

And in the end it came about that the arrow in his leg proved the bane of Kukigaq, and he died of it.

​

There was once a man whose name was Qijuk. He was a strong man. But there was also another man who was strong. He lived in another village, and his name was Kíngusarârjuk. While out on a hunting expedition, Qijuk's wife died. Qijuk was now a widower, and made up his mind to kill Kíngusarârjuk in order to take his wife. Qijuk called for companions to go with him on the journey, and he collected a party and they set out. But it was a difficult road, with very rugged ice, a toilsome road, and most of Qijuks party turned back: at last there were only his two younger brothers in his following, all the rest having turned back. They travelled all that winter, and not until summer did they reach the place. Qijuk went straight in to Kíngusarârjuk's wife, laid his head in her lap and got her to pick his lice. Kíngusarârjuk was out hunting caribou. Towards evening, he came back from this hunting, with a caribou in his kayak. He was a skilful hunter. His neighbours greeted him on his homecoming and said:

"Qijuk has taken your wife."

Kíngusarârjuk burst into tears and said:

"The weak man never finds any to help him."

Qijuk heard these words, and said:

"Kingusarârjuk's teeth are crooked. When I fling him on his back and am just about to kill him. I shall laugh at those crooked teeth of his."

Kíngusarârjuk laid his kayak up on shore in such a manner that it could easily be launched again, and then went into a tent near his own. There was a man here, who gave him a knife with a wooden handle. Kíngusarârjuk then sang a magic song which sent Qijuk to sleep. Qijuk had pulled his arms out of the sleeves, and lay with his arms in under his tunic, his head in the woman's lap, while she picked his lice, and so he fell asleep. Qijuk's young brothers ran out and played games with the other young people of the village. But when Qijuk had fallen asleep, Kíngusarârjuk went over to his tent and looked in at him. He took his knife and went in. He cut the lining of his breeches and stabbed him, and went out again, his wife following. He leapt into his kayak and pushed off from land, with his wife in the back of the kayak.

But when Qijuk was stabbed, he jerked his arms under the tunic so violently that he tore it asunder, and then he set off in chase of the fugitives. He had nearly come up with them when he fell down and lay there on the ground, unable to rise. Thus died Qijuk, and his brothers were at once set upon, and one was killed, the other man​aged to escape. Qijuk's brother rowed home to the village, and here he was often urged to take vengeance for his brothers, but he did not think himself strong enough for the task, and therefore did not avenge his brothers.

Two brothers, Aumarzuat and Atanârzuat, lay sleeping one night in their tent, when they were attacked by enemies. Atanârzuat was killed, but Aumarzuat managed to escape and made his way home to his parents' house. His parents hid him under some seaweed, fearing lest his enemies should come in search of him. And this they did, but his mother then set about cooking some meat, so as to make it appear that she had no knowledge of their errand. They sought about everywhere, especially where the snow had melted away. They threw harpoons in all directions, but were forced to return home without having accomplished their purpose. Aumarzuat then lay for some time to let his wounds heal, and when he was well again, he kept to places far from the dwellings of men, and hunted game for his parents.

Winter came, and his mother made him a fine tunic, all embroidered with handsome white patterns. His tunics were always made like that, and when Aumarzuat had got his new tunic, he felt a great desire to set out and take vengeance for the killing of his brother. His parents sought to dissuade him but in vain, Aumarzuat held to his purpose, and since there was no help for it, they at last agreed to let him go off and seek vengeance for his brother.

He then went alone towards the village of his enemies, and when he came in sight, and people saw him, they said:

"It can be no other than Aumarzuat, for he is the only one who wears tunics like that."

And true enough, it was Aumarzuat, they could all see for themselves when he came nearer, and he came to the village and cried:

"I should like to fight while I am awake. Last time I was attacked while I slept. Let all my enemies come out if they dare."

They all came out, and the fight began, between that one man and his enemies. But when Aumarzuat had killed two men, and the others now saw the mighty strength of him, they ceased to offer any resistance; they were now afraid of him. The fight came to an end, ​since none would now strike in self-defence, and Aumarzuat took the wives of the men he had killed, and returned to his parents' house. Two men went with him on the road; they meant no harm to him, but all the same, when they were about to take leave of him, Aumarzuat killed one of them. He had, as it were, got into the way of killing; and thus he avenged the slaying of his brother.

There was once a jealous man who had two wives. Whenever he went out hunting, it was his custom to lay soft, loose snow round his hut, so that if anyone came to visit his wives while he was away, he could see the fresh tracks in the snow.

Tigganajuk was displeased at this, for he knew that he was the one whom the husband suspected.

One day, when Tigganajuk was out hunting, he looked round and discovered that the jealous one had raised his harpoon to throw at him, but the moment Tigganajuk saw it, the man lowered his arm. Nevertheless, Tigganajuk moved off backwards, keeping his face to the other. He took a few steps back, and then with a run he dashed forward and stabbed the man to death. Having done so, he struck him on the head, and afterwards returned to the village.

The man who had been killed had a brother who was a shaman, and people now began urging him to take vengeance on Tigganajuk by killing him, and true enough, one morning the shaman entered Tigganajuk's house. Just by the window there was a knife stuck into the snow, covered with blood, and it was with this that Tigganajuk had killed the shaman's brother. The shaman now, on entering the house, took this knife, threatened Tigganajuk with it, and then went into the other part of the house, the second room, where some other people lived. Tigganajuk lay on his sleeping place calmly looking on. Hardly had the shaman moved away into the other part of the house, when he leapt up all of a sudden, grasped his knife, and stabbed the shaman to death.

Thus Tigganajuk killed the two brothers, and afterwards he took the wives of the jealous husband for his own.

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In the days when there were many people living at Nuvuk (near Wager Bay), there were also two brothers living there, both married. They were bold and skilful hunters, and it was therefore not long before their neighbours grew envious of them. Once when they were out hunting caribou, both of them were murdered, and all the animals they had killed were stolen. After the killing of the brothers, the various men now lay with the wives of the murdered men. This the women did not like, and therefore one day they spoke to each other and said:

"Next time a man comes in here to lie with us, we will laugh him to scorn; one of us can pretend she is willing to receive him, but then the other shall come up and catch hold of him and make water in his mouth."

The night came, and when a man came along as usual to visit them, one of the women called out to her fellow:

"Ah, here he is!" And then the other woman came up, and they caught hold of the man, and one of them sat astride his head and made water in his mouth, and they kept on like that, until the man was suffocated. Then quietly they prepared to leave the place in the middle of the night, while the others were asleep, and fled away. They fled across the ice, and in the morning, when the neighbours found out what had happened, they set out in pursuit. The two women took with them their husband's mother, and when they perceived that they were being followed, they said to her:

"You know a lot of magic songs; sing a magic song that will break up the ice behind us, so that our pursuers cannot reach us."

"Yes, I know a little magic song, I will try it," said the old woman.

She then drew a line on the ice behind the uprights of their sledge, and recited the magic song, and at once the ice broke away behind the sledge, and the one in pursuit of them was so near that the leader of the team fell into the water, but the three women escaped, being carried out to sea. They came to Southampton Island, and here they lived all alone, and there were no other men there save their little sons, that they carried in their amauts. But now it was not long before these women began to long for men so greatly that they lay with their own children, and these little boys did not grow up because the women took all the strength out of them, and they stayed small. The women were therefore obliged to go out hunting themselves, and this they did by taking with them their sons, who were still carried in the amauts, but had the understanding of grown men, to show ​them how to manage. And thus they captured whales, walrus, seal and other animals.

But the shamans, from whom nothing is hidden, discovered them, and did not approve of the life they were living. But the women, who were skilled in shamanism themselves, found out that others were seeking to do them harm, and so they sang this song to their husbands:

It is said that a real man once came to these women who had no grown-up husband of their own. The stranger met one of the women, and she took him in to her house at once and he lay with her, and when he got up to go, the woman said to him:

"Take this tent pole by way of thanks, for that you lay with me, lay with me who am lonely, having no husband to lie with me."

And the man took the tent pole home with him, that had been given him as a gift.

And another time, it is said, a white man landed on the island where lived the women without husbands. The women ran to meet him as he came, and so eager were they to embrace him, so eager to have him lie with them, that they suffocated him.

Thus women become dangerous when they have no husbands to lie with them.

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There was once a great hunter who when out after whale one day was thrown against the side of the boat and badley hurt. His genitals were crushed, and he was no longer a man. Since he could not be a man, he wished to be a woman, and got himself made a woman's dress. He rubbed away all the skin from his face, and people died of fright at the sight of it. One day, when he had got a new set of woman's garments, he went to his mother. When his mother saw him, she said:

"Is this really my son, the great hunter?"

At these words, he rubbed the skin off his face, and looked so terrible that his mother died of fright.

He was now a woman, and got a man to marry him, a poor unskilful hunter. But as soon as the unskilful hunter had taken him to wife, he suddenly became fortunate in his hunting, and they took in a boy as their adopted son and brought him up.

One day the neighbours had assembled for a song festival. The man and his wife thought they would like to be present, and went to the place. When the great hunter who had turned into a woman came in, the people began to deride him, saying:

"Take off those woman's clothes, do, and let us see if you are a man or a woman."

Then in his anger he began rubbing the skin off his face to frighten them to death, but the people ran away before he could get it down, and so he gave it up. But the adopted son grew up and became a mighty hunter, because he had been so well brought up.

A man from Amitsoq (Melville Peninsula), who lived among the Aivilingmiut, was killed. As soon as his fellows at Amitsoq heard of it, a great number of men went down to Aivilik to avenge him. But all those men who came to take vengeance were themselves taken by surprise and killed.

But their women were divided among the men of Aivilik. Only one woman, named Inukpaujaq, who was getting old, was left without a husband, and when summer came, she took a dog with her to carry her belongings, and went off inland. She went on up country without rightly knowing where she was going, and came at last to Serluaq (Haviland Bay). Here she saw a man rowing in a kayak a ​little way out at sea, and when she had seen him, she called out to him and asked if she could be his wife.

"I dont want a wife who is getting old," answered the man.

The woman felt great shame at this. She could not walk the whole of the long way back to the village, so she sat down on a stone beside her dog. And she stayed there, sitting beside the dog. And as she sat there beside the dog, everything in her began suddenly to grow stiff with grief. So she turned into stone, and it is that pillar of stone that stands at the base of Haviland Bay and is called Inukpaujaq to this day, after the woman whom none of the Aivilik men would have for a wife.

There were once an old man and his wife who lived alone with their daughter. The girl was of an age to be married, but there were no men to marry her. They had once had neighbours, but these had gone away, as they did not care about the old people, who were poor and could not manage for themselves.

Some time after they had been left alone in the village, there came a bear, and they could hear it moving about in one of the empty huts near by. The old man, who had once been a skilful hunter, but was now blind, took a tent pole and began making a harpoon. He was just fixing a harpoon head to the tent pole when the bear entered the house. It came in through the passage, and as this was close and narrow, the bear could move but slowly. At last it appeared at the entrance, exposing itself in a place where it could be severely wounded, and the old man stabbed it there with his harpoon. The bear uttered never a sound, but crawled out again. The man would have gone out after it, but neither his wife nor his daughter would let him go out. Nevertheless, he went out, and called to his daughter, saying:

"Little daughter, come out here, do, and look about in this direction."

The daughter came out and saw the bear lying out on the ice. The wife now also came out, and she spoke to the old man, suggesting that they should go over to where the bear was, approaching it from the front. The bear lay dead on the ice. They fastened a strip of hide round it and dragged it up to the entrance of their house and began cutting it up outside the house. While they stood here cutting up the ​bear, a strange man came up to them. The old man was frightened at this visit of a stranger, he was afraid they were now to be killed.

"We are just cutting up some meat," he said.

The stranger went into the house and sat down beside the daughter, and took her to wife at once.

And thus it came about that the old couple who were left behind by their neighbours, got both meat to eat and a husband for their daughter.

Some people were out on a journey, and came to an island called Quvdlugiartôq: the place of many worms. Among the party was a man who was so afraid of worms that he dared not sleep there on the island, and when the others pitched their camp, he went off to another island to sleep there. And there he lay down to sleep, but was at once attacked by a host of worms, that crept into him through all the openings of his body, and killed him.

This story is told, because the old ones declare that it is the nature of worms to attack and kill all who fear them, whereas those who lie down on the ground without fear always escape. The worms do them no harm.

A pregnant woman brought forth a child. The child was hardly born before it flung itself upon its mother and killed her, and began eating her.

Suddenly the infant cried:

"My mother's little first finger stuck crosswise in my mouth, and I could hardly manage to get it out again."

And with these words, the infant killed itself, after first having murdered and eaten its mother.

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