The People of the Polar North/Chapter 22
The Sun and the Moon were brother and sister. Once in the winter, during the long night, people began to play in the houses, with the lamps out. Then one by one the men took outside the women they had been with, and lighted torches to see who they were. . . . Then when the Moon led out his, he saw by the light of the torch that it was the Sun, his sister.
The Sun was ashamed at having lain with her brother, tore off her breasts, and threw them down in front of him.
"I am according to your taste,—here! taste this too."
Then she ran away, and her brother started after her; both of them held their torches in their hands.
All at once they began to rise up into the air, but the Moon fell, and his torch went out, so that it only glowed. Thus they got up to the sky. The Sun, who kept her torch burning, is brilliantly light and hot, but the Moon, whose torch is merely glowing, is light only without giving warmth. Now they have their house in heaven, divided into two rooms.
In the height of summer the Sun never goes into her house; she is out day and night, and the earth is delightful then, when the snow melts and the flowers grow. During that time the Moon never goes out of his house.
But in the winter, when the Sun no longer leaves her house at all, the long Dark comes, and then it is uncomfortable for men. The cold Moon has to give light by himself, but as he also has to help people in other ways, he disappears sometimes. You see, he has to fetch animals for men to catch. That is why we say, at the new Moon: "Thank you! you have brought animals for us."
During the long Dark, people do not go out fishing; they only pay visits to one another and sing drum-songs. Only when a bear ventures near the houses, or hides himself in a hollow in a glacier, do they light big torches and hunt it.
When the constellation of the Great Bear is seen at dawn men are filled with great delight; for then it will not be long till the light comes again.
And when at last the Sun comes men call out: "Joy! joy! the great Warmer has come; soon we shall be able to seek the sunny side!" And then comes the time when people build sheltering walls of snow and gather round a man's meat at great banquets.
Told by Maisanguaq (a man of about thirty).
There was once upon a time a woman who ran away to the hills; she could not walk, but had to crawl, for her husband had stabbed the soles of her feet with his knife.
On her way she saw a sledge going along through the air. This was the Great Man in the Moon.
"Ho! Great Man in the Moon," she called to him, and he came to her. When he had come near to her, he wished to have her for his wife.
On his sledge he had many seal-skins; he began to take them off, so that she could sit down on the bottom one.
"Shut your eyes!" he said to her, and then they drove up through the air.
"When you come into my house you must not on any account look in the direction of the Sun; nor must you smile, for then the Stealer of Entrails would cut the intestines out of your body," the man explained to her.
It is said that just by the side of the Moon there lives a man who steals the intestines out of people. He is the cousin of the Moon. He visits the Moon and dances drum-dances with him. During his singing and dancing, he tries to make people laugh, and if he can make them even smile, he rips up their bodies and Yes, and so the Man in the Moon arrived at his house.
"Now take care, whatever you do, not to look at the Sun," he said again; "for if you rouse her curiosity she might burn you."
Then they went into the house. The woman stole just a little tiny glance at the Sun, and her fur-coat was burnt at once.
On the sleeping-place at the side, she found a number of people who had had their intestines cut out.
Before, the Moon had used a seal-bone for a wife, but now that he had a real woman, he despised it and threw it into the back part of the house.
"Hum!" it said, offended, as it fell.
"When you are about to be a mother you can go home," said he to his new wife.
At last the day arrived that the intestine-stealer came to pay his visit and began to dance his drum-dance. His wife stood in the window and watched.
"She was just going to smile then," she called out; but it was not true, and at last the intestine-stealer had to go, angry, without having got what he wanted.
One day the woman looked down on the earth from her sleeping-place, and she caught sight of her two little children walking hand in hand; and she grew homesick. At last, when she was about to be a mother, the Moon man took her home.
Then, after he had left her, he always sent her food, for he dropped bears, foxes, and hares down on the earth.
But one day an old woman surprised him, and then he was ashamed, and after that he never brought food again.
It was through the narratives of this woman that human beings learnt about the inhabitants of the Moon.
Told by Arnaluk.
A woman who had had a miscarriage had run away from her family. As she ran, she came to a house. In the passage lay the skins of bears. She went in.
The inhabitants turned out to be bears in human shape.
But she stayed with them. One big bear caught seals for them. He pulled on his skin, went out, and remained away some time, but always brought something home. One day the woman who had run away took a fancy to see her relations and wanted to go home, and then the bear spoke to her.
"Do not talk about us when you get back to men," he said to her. He was afraid that his two young ones might be killed by men.
So the woman went home, and a great desire to tell came over her; and one day, as she sat caressing her husband, she whispered in his ear—
"I have seen bears!"
Many sledges drove out, and when the bear saw them coming towards his house he had great compassion on his young ones and bit them to death. He did not wish them to fall into the power of men.
Then he rushed out to look for the woman who had deceived him, broke into the house where she was, and bit her to death. When he came out again the dogs closed up in a circle round him and rushed upon him. The bear defended himself, and suddenly they all became luminous and rose up into the sky as stars. And those are what they call Qilugtûssat; they who are like a flock of barking dogs after a bear.
Since then men have been cautious about bears, for they hear what men say.
Told by Aisivak.
At last the old man became furious with them for disturbing his seal-catching and shouted—
"Close, cleft, over those who frighten my catch away!"
And immediately the cleft closed in over the playing children. One of them, who was carrying a little child, got the tail of her fur-coat cut to bits.
Then they all began to scream inside the cleft of the rock, because they could not get out. And no one could take food to them down there, but they poured a little water down to them through a tiny opening in the fissure. And they licked it up from the side of the rock.
At last they all died of hunger.
The rock which is spoken of in this story is near Igdluluarssuit, up towards Neqe.
People then attacked the old man who had made the rock close over the children by his magic. He started off at a run and the others ran after him.
All at once he became luminous and shot up to the sky, and now he sits up there as a great star. We see it in the west when the light begins to return after the long Dark; but very low down—it never comes up very high. We call it Nâlagssartoq: he who stands and listens. Perhaps because the old man stood out on the ice and listened for the seals to come up to breathe.
Told by Maisanguaq.