The People of the Polar North/Chapter 21
PART III
FABLES AND LEGENDS
Men used to have stronger vital sap than now; that was in the days when all countries were inhabited.
Then things were done that we do not understand now, and the eye saw things which are hidden from us.
But the tongue has carried down the experiences of the old men to us, whose vital sap is more diluted.
MAJAQ.
[These fables and legends were written down during the Polar Night. They are told in the houses at this Season, when the Eskimos, after great banquets of raw, frozen meat late in the evening, are digesting their food and are heavy and tired. Then it is the task of the story-teller to talk his hearers to sleep. The best story-tellers boast of never having told any story to the end.
The legends are known to all; it is the grandmother's business to teach them to her grandchildren.
This is the first time that the legends of the Polar Eskimos have been put on record, and my principle, during my task, has been never to repeat any story until I myself had learnt it and told it. In this way I made the whole manner of the story-telling my own, and I have endeavoured, as far as possible, to give literal translations.—K. R.]
It is said that our fathers had no lice,—lucky people. But once it happened that a man lay down to sleep on the ground, and the worm and the louse saw him.
The worm, which flattered itself it was quick on its legs, said to the louse: "Look! a man Shall we see which of us can reach him first?" They started off at a run as quickly as they could, but the worm fell down, and the louse arrived first.
"Man does not taste at all nice; the earth is the only food," called out the worm, as it fell down. "I prefer to be the earth's louse."
But the louse merely made haste on to the man and found in him both food and home.
And since then men have had lice.
Told by Arnaluk (an old woman of about sixty).
Our forefathers had forbidden women who had just given birth to children to mention lice by name, or to complain when they caused irritation. Once upon a time there was a woman who had just become a mother, and who was horribly tormented by lice on her shoulder.
"It is strange," said she, "that such tiny, toothless animals can bite so hard!" but, as she stole a glance towards her shoulder, she saw a frightful mouth with great teeth.
See, it was the louse who, angry at what she had said, had assumed the shape of a monster.
The woman was so frightened that she died.
Since this occurrence women in childbirth have been forbidden to mention lice by name.
This happened in the days of our forefathers,—in the days when a thoughtless tongue could fashion monsters which brought about great misfortunes.
Generally, the louse is afraid of human beings; this is proved by the following legend.
Two lice were once talking together.
"Give me my mittens; they are hanging on the post," said the husband.
They lived in a reindeer skin, and it was the hairs that the husband called posts.
"Oh no; stay at home with me," said the wife; "the people will kill you."
"Do not be uneasy," replied the husband; "I must have something to eat, you know. The only thing I am afraid of is that two icebergs may fall down on me and crush me; in that case I shall never come back. But that does not often happen."
The louse called a man's nails icebergs.
"If I am only eaten," he went on, "I shall come back again, and so you need not be afraid for me; I shall only be scalded a little red by passing through the man's stomach."
So the wife was satisfied, and gave him his mittens.
"Oh! I shall find myself a delicate armhole!" said the louse, and vanished.
He was a very long time away, and when he came home again he was red all over.
This is what happened to Avuvang when, in the course of his soul migrations, he became a louse. From him we know the lives of all the animals.
Told by Osarqaq (young man of about twenty-five).
A little sparrow was grieving for her husband, who had not returned. She was fond of him, because he used to catch worms for her.
As she sat weeping, a raven came up to her and asked—
"What are you crying for?"
"I am crying for my husband, who has not returned. I was fond of him, because he caught worms for me," said the sparrow.
"Weeping is not seemly for those who can hop about on the top of the blades of grass. Marry me—me, with my lovely high forehead, broad temples, long beard, and large beak. You shall sleep under my wings, and dainty dung shall be your food."
"I will not marry you, just because you have a high forehead, broad temples, long beard, and large beak—and because you offer me dung for food."
So the raven went his way, and went to make love to the wild geese. And he was so sick with love that he could not sleep. The wild geese were just about to fly away when he reached them.
"As a silly sparrow has rejected me, I should like to marry you," said the raven to two geese.
"You arrive just as we are about to fly away," said the geese.
"I will come with you," said the raven.
"But see, that is impossible for any one who cannot rest on the sea. There are no icebergs that way."
"Never mind! I will sail through the air."
And so he took the two geese as his wives.
Then the wild geese set off, and the raven with them; but it was not long before he began to drop behind, he was so tired and drowsy. "Something—to rest upon! Place yourselves side by side!" he cried. And his two wives placed themselves side by side on the water, while their comrades went on.
The raven settled himself upon their backs and fell asleep. But when his wives saw the other wild geese getting farther and farther away, they shook the raven off into the sea and flew on.
"Something to rest upon!" shrieked the raven, as it fell with a great splash into the water. At last it sank to the bottom and was drowned.
Afterwards it broke up into small pieces, and its soul became little "sea ravens" (black pteropods).
Told by Aisivak (an old woman of about sixty).
A man out walking came to a cave in which the owl, the raven, the gull, the hawk, and the arctic skua (dunghunter) lived together in human shape.
All were anxious to play host to the man, so went out hunting.
The raven came back with human dung, and on its arrival said to one of its children—
"Thou with the broad shoulders, fetch the piece of whale-skin without blubber from outside the man must eat."
But the man would not eat it—only the raven and the gull ate; even the other inhabitants of the cave refused it.
Then the gull went out and came back with Polar cod, which were as delicate as icicles. The man ate of them and thought them good.
Then the hawk went out, and caught eider-ducks and Little Auks.
The man ate them too, gladly.
The arctic skua, who had no meat, began to vomit; but the man despised that.
Then at last the owl spoke—
"Now let me see if I can provide something for our guest," and he flew off.
On a plain he saw two hares and started to pursue them; but as he greedily wanted to catch them both, and the hares suddenly ran off in different directions, the owl, trying to go both ways at once, was torn in two, and died. So he was never able to get food for the man.
Told by Arnaluk.
A man once saw a huge flock of wild geese in the middle of a large lake. They had thrown off their feather coats and turned into men and women, and they were bathing and playing about in the water.
He was seized with a desire to take two of them for wives, so hid their coats; but as he sprang forward and caught them, one of them wept so bitterly that he gave her her coat back. The other he brought home with him to his grandmother and made his wife.
She soon gave him twins, both boys.
But the wild goose grew homesick for her comrades and began to collect bird's feathers and wings. She soon had enough.
And one day, when her husband was out seal-catching, she made herself a coat of feathers and flew away with her children.
When the husband came home, he set off at once to seek them, and started at a run along the land.
On the way he met with two earth spirits, who were tearing each other's hair. They placed themselves in his way, but he flew over them by magic, for he was a great magician. Next he met with two hillock spirits that were trampling upon one another. They too blocked his way, but he flew over them by magic.
Then he came to a pot that had seal's flesh boiling in it, and it was talking to itself—"A man po-po-po."
It wanted to entice him to eat, but he flew over it by magic again, then came to a flock of hairless puppy dogs, that also wished to prevent him passing.
They were the earth's dogs, hairless, like worms. He passed them by, and went on to Kajungajorssuaq, a man who was horribly deformed behind.
The magician, who knew his thoughts, and knew that he was ashamed of his appearance, approached him from the front.
"How did you come?" asked the man.
"I came this way," replied the man.
"Good; if you had come up from behind me, I would have killed you. You shall go on to the people that you are seeking; I can hear them from here." And he showed him the way.
The magician shut his eyes and leaped down on an ice-floe, and in this way approached those he was seeking.
And as he went towards them his children saw him.
"Father has come," they called out.
"I will see him; bring him in," said the wife.
And he went in.
She, in the meantime, had taken another husband, an old fellow, who at once took flight.
"Let me get out; I am losing my paunch, qoa-r-r-rit!" he cried, and rushed out through the passage. He was an old long-tailed duck.
The man and wife then lived together again, but as the wife did not care for her husband, she pretended one day to die.
The husband buried her, but as soon as he had gone away from her she broke out of the cairn.
"I saw Mother over there," the children began to cry out.
"I am Qitdluk," lied she.
So then he harpooned his wife in his anger.
When the murder became known, her compatriots changed into wild geese and flew away.
But the man, who thought that they would come back again to take their revenge, went again to Kajungajorssuaq; and he gave him a long, heavy whip-lash.
And then one day they came into sight, the avengers, and drew near like a great cloud; but he lashed at their plumage and killed them.
Only a few escaped. But they came again—a larger flock of them—and again he thrashed them to death, this time all of them.
After that the man lived for a long time on all the fat wild geese.
Yes, that is the end of this story.
Told by Tateraq (middle-aged man).
There was once upon a time a man who thought he would like to take a wife who was not like everybody else's wife, and so he caught a little fox and took her with him to his tent.
One day he had been out seal-catching, and came home and surprised his little wife, who had changed into a woman. She had a lovely big knot of hair on her head: that was her tail. And she had taken off her shaggy skin. And when he saw her like that he thought her very beautiful.
Then she began to wish to see other people; and so they went away and settled down elsewhere.
There was one of the men there who had taken a little hare to wife. The two men thought they would like to exchange wives, and they did so.
But the man who had borrowed the little fox-wife despised her when he had lain down beside her. She smelt so strongly of fox, and it was not pleasant.
And when the fox saw it, she was angry, because she was so anxious to please men; and she put out the lamp with her tail, sprang out of the house, and fled far away into the hills.
Up there she found a worm, and stayed with him.
But her husband, who was fond of her, went after her, and found her at last with the worm, who had clothed himself in human shape.
But it so happened that he was the man's mortal enemy of yore; for it appeared that once, a long, long time before, he had burnt a worm, and that worm's soul was the very one that had changed itself into a man. The man could see, too, that its face was all burnt.
The worm then challenged the man, and suggested that they should pull each other's arms, and so they wrestled, but the man found the worm very easy to vanquish, and then he went out and would not have anything more to do with his wife, and he started off on his travels and came to the strand-dwellers. They had houses on the beach by the sea-shore, just at the turning of the tide.
Their houses were quite small, and they themselves were dwarfs, who called eider-ducks walruses, but otherwise they looked just like men. They were quite harmless.
We never see those sort of people now, but our forefathers told us of them; they knew them.
And when the man saw their houses, which had roofs of stone, he went in to them, but he had to make himself quite small; he was a very great magician, you know.
And as soon as he entered they brought out meat, a whole shoulder of a large walrus. In reality, it was only the wing of an eider-duck. And they began to eat greedily of it, but did not eat it all.
After he had stayed for a time with these people, he went back to his own house, and I have nothing more to tell about him.
Told by Arnajaq (young woman).
Once upon a time there was a man who could not see, and when his fellow-villagers went out seal-catching, they left him with his mother and his little sister.
One day as the blind man lay asleep the mother woke him.
"A bear, a bear in the window!" she said, and he strained his bow, and she guided his hand.
"That sounded as if the bear had been hit!" he said, as the arrow fell.
"Oh no! you hit the window-sill."
She wanted to eat the bear all herself—she gave her son only shell-fish.
But the little sister let lumps of meat drop down under her fur-collar and gave them to her brother.
One day in the middle of summer the blind man said to his sister—
"Lead me up to a lake."
And she guided him up to a lake.
As he stood there by the lake, a loon came and began to speak.
"Take hold of me round my neck, I will carry you!" it said. And then it dived down into the sea with him. The blind man came near losing his breath. Then it came up to the surface of the lake for a little, and then went down again and then up, and then down again.
The blind man gasped for breath.
"Do you see land?" asked the loon.
"I see!" shouted the man, but the loon dived again, and then again.
"Do you see now?"
"I see wide countries!"
And then the man had his sight again and went home.
"A bear-skin spread out!" exclaimed the man, when he arrived home.
"One that has been left by Persoqaq," lied his mother.
"Look, look, white whales in sight!" said the man.
"Harpoon them! harpoon them! and bind me fast to the line!" said the mother eagerly. And so he used her to fasten the line to.
"Choose the little one, I can manage that," called out the mother, and so he threw the harpoon at a little white whale, which they caught.
The next day he determined to put an end to his mother's life, to avenge himself, and he harpooned a large white whale, which dragged the mother into the sea after it.
"My curved knife, my curved knife!" cried the mother, as she was about to disappear in the waves. She wanted to cut the line.
But she did not come back, and was changed into a narwhal, for she plaited her hair into tusks, and from her the narwhals are descended. Before her, there were only white whales.
The man grieved that he had killed his mother and went away with his sister.
On their travels they came to people with long claws. These people had no knives, but used their claws to flay and cut up animals.
"Let them come in," said the oldest of them.
And when the two had gone in, they tore the sister to pieces and ate her.
"Why are you eating her?" cried out the brother, in anger, and killed them with a walrus tusk. Then he collected his sister's bones, put them in a bag and carried them away.
He was a great magician, and as he carried his sister thus on his back, she began gradually to come to life again, and at last she began to talk—
"Brother, let me become well." Then she began to grow heavy to carry.
"Brother, I will walk myself." And she walked.
Then they came to people again, people without any rumps to their backs, only to their hands. Among them the brother took a wife and the sister a husband.
The brother and sister settled down among these people for good, and had children, and grew old.
Told by Arnaluk.
Once upon a time a fissure occurred in an ice-hill; the ice snapped like a pistol-shot, and the noise of it as it broke, received life and became a man; his name was Nuté, that is, fissure. His face was full of cracks, and so he was ashamed to meet people.
He always lived in the dark and never took off his mittens.
One day he paid a visit to a woman and her daughter, and made the daughter his wife.
He was a very clever seal-hunter.
But one day his mother-in-law began to tease him with lies.
"My mittens! I am not a man, and I will not live like a man; let me go back to the dark again," said Nuté, and went back to his glacier.
"Ah! I thought that you were outside, ka-ka-ka-ka," screamed the mother-in-law, and became a fox.
"Whatever is happening to mother!" said the girl.
But the fox sprang up amongst the rocks.
The daughter soon became a mother, and her child was a boy. When he reached manhood, he became a mighty hunter.
Here ends this story.
Told by Iterfiluk (middle-aged woman).
A woman adopted a caterpillar, and nursed it. In this way she made it grow. At last it grew very big, and she was obliged to fasten it to the sleeping-place, for it wanted to go out.
It was quite covered with hair, the caterpillar, and frightful to look upon.
But one day when it heard some children crying, it broke its fastenings, chased them, and ate a little child.
The people in the village were horrified at its having eaten the little child, but the woman would not kill it, because it was her baby.
At last the men lay in wait outside the entrance passage, and made children scream. The caterpillar came tearing out, and then they killed it. They had grown afraid of it, after it had eaten a little child.
Told by Tateraq.
A woman who had no children took a worm from a hillock and nursed it.
She made a little fur-coat for it of warm fur, and the worm grew big. At last it was as big as an arm, and she used to keep it in the sleeves of her fur-coat.
The worm grew bigger and bigger, but the woman grew thinner and thinner. At last her mother grew afraid, and one day, while her daughter was out, she took the worm and struck it against the floor.
Ih-i-i-ih!" said the worm, and burst, with a loud report.
The blood streamed out and the dogs came and licked it up.
But when the woman came home and did not find her child, she burst into tears.
Told by Tateraq.