Eskimo Folk Tales Part 3

When his thoughts had begun to work upon this, he threw away his burden and went towards it and began to wrestle with it. And it was not a long time before he began to tear its covering in pieces; the flesh on it was not bigger than a thumb. Then he went away from it, and took up his burden again on his head, and went wandering on. When he was again going along homewards, he felt in himself that he had become a great wizard, and he could see the door openings of all the villages in that countryside quite close together.

And when he came home, he caused these words to be said:

"Let the people come and hear."

And now many people came hurrying into the house. And he began calling up spirits. And in this calling he raised himself up and flew away towards his wife.

And when he came near her in his spirit flight, and hovered above her, she was sitting sewing. He went straight down through the roof, and when she tried to escape through the floor he did likewise, and reached her in the earth. After this, she was very willing when he tried to take her home with him, and he took her home with him, and now he had his wife again, and those two people lived together until they were very old.

One winter, the frost came, and was very hard and the sea was frozen, and only a little opening was left, far out over the ice. And hither Qujavarssuk was forced to carry his kayak each day, out to the open water, but each day he caught two seals, as was his custom.

And then, as often happens in time of dearth, there came many poor people wandering over the ice, from the south, wishing to get some good thing of all that Qujavarssuk caught. Once there came also two old men, and they were his mother's kinsmen. They came on a visit. And when they came, his mother said to them:

"Now you have come before I have got anything cooked. It is true that I have something from the cooking of yesterday; eat that if you will, while I cook something now." Then she set before them the kidney part of a black seal, with its own blubber as dripping. Now one of the two old men began eating, and went on eagerly, dipping the meat in the dripping. But the other stopped eating very soon.

Then Qujavarssuk came home, as was his custom, with two seals, and said to his mother:

"Take the breast part and boil it quickly."

For this was the best part of the seal. And she boiled it, and it was done in a moment. And then she set it on a dish and brought it to those two.

"Here, eat."

And now at last the one of them began really to eat, but the other took a piece of the shoulder. When Qujavarssuk saw this, he said:

"You should not begin to eat from the wrong side."

And when he had said that, he said again:

"If you eat from that side, then my catching of the seals will cease." But the old man became very angry in his mind at this order.

Next morning, when they were about to set off again southward, Qujavarssuk's mother gave them as much meat as they could carry. They went home southward, over the ice, but when they had gone a little way, they were forced to stop, because their burden was so heavy. And when they had rested a little, they went on again. When they had come near to their village, one said to the other:

"Has there not wakened a thought in your mind? I am very angry with Qujavarssuk. Yesterday, when we came there, they gave us only a kidney piece in welcome, and that is meat I do not like at all."

"Hum," said the other. "I thought it was all very good. It was fine tender meat for my teeth."

At these words, the other began again to speak:

"Now that my anger has awakened, I will make a Tupilak for that miserable Qujavarssuk."

But the other said to him:

"Why will you do such a thing? Look; their gifts are so many that we must carry the load upon our heads."

But that comrade would not change his purpose, not for all the trying of the other to turn him from it. And at last the other ceased to speak of it.

Now as the cold grew stronger, that opening in the ice became smaller and smaller, at the place where Qujavarssuk was used to go with his kayak. One day, when he came down to it, there was but just room for his kayak to go in, and if now a seal should rise, it could not fail to strike the kayak. Yet he got into the kayak, and at the time when he was fixing the head on his harpoon, he saw a black seal coming up from below. But seeing that it must touch both the ice and the kayak, it went down again without coming right to the surface. Then Qujavarssuk went up again and went home, and that was the first time he went home without having made a catch, in all the time he had been a hunter.

When he had come home, he sat himself down behind his mother's lamp, sitting on the bedplace, so that only his feet hung down over the floor. He was so troubled that he would not eat. And later in the evening, he said to his mother:

"Take meat to Tugto and his wife, and ask one of them to magic away the ice."

His mother went out and cut the meat of a black seal across at the middle. Then she brought the tail half, and half the blubber of a seal, up to Tugto and his wife. She came to the entrance, but it was covered with snow, so that it looked like a fox hole. At first, she dropped that which she was carrying in through the pa.s.sage way. And it was this which Tugto and his wife first saw; the half of a black seal's meat and half of its blubber cut across. And when she came in, she said:

"It is my errand now to ask if one of you can magic away the ice."

When these words were heard, Tugto said to his wife:

"In this time of hunger we cannot send away meat that is given. You must magic away the ice."

And she set about to do his bidding. To Qujavarssuk's mother she said:

"Tell all the people who can come here to come here and listen!"

And then she began eagerly going in to the dwellings, to say that all who could come should come in and listen to the magic. When all had come in, she put out the lamp, and began to call on her helping spirits. Then suddenly she said:

"Two flames have appeared in the west!"

And now she was standing up in the pa.s.sage way, and let them come to her, and when they came forward, they were a bear and a walrus. The bear blew her in under the bedplace, but when it drew in its breath again, she came out from under the bedplace and stopped at the pa.s.sage way. In this manner it went on for a long time. But now she made ready to go out, and said then to the listeners:

"All through this night none may yawn or wink an eye." And then she went out.

At the same moment when she went out, the bear took her in its teeth and flung her out over the ice. Hardly had she fallen on the ice again, when the walrus thrust its tusks into her and flung her out across the ice, but the bear ran along after her, keeping beneath her as she flew through the air. Each time she fell on the ice, the walrus thrust its tusks into her again. It seemed as if the outermost islands suddenly went to the bottom of the sea, so quickly did she move outwards. They were now almost out of sight, and not until they could no longer see the land did the walrus and the bear leave her. Then she could begin again to go towards the land.

When at last she could see the cliffs, it seemed as if there were clouds above them, because of the driving snow. At last the wind came down, and the ice began at once to break up. Now she looked round on all sides, and caught sight of an iceberg which was frozen fast. And towards this she let herself drift. Hardly had she come up on to the iceberg, when the ice all went to pieces, and now there was no way for her to save herself. But at the same moment she heard someone beside her say:

"Let me take you in my kayak." And when she looked round, she saw a man in a very narrow kayak. And he said a second time:

"Come and let me take you in my kayak. If you will not do this, then you will never taste the good things Qujavarssuk has paid you."

Now the sea was very rough, and yet she made ready to go. When a wave lifted the kayak, she sprang down into it. But as she dropped down, the kayak was nearly upset. Then, as she tried to move over to the other side of it, she again moved too far, and then he said:

"Place yourself properly in the middle of the kayak."

And when she had done so, he tried to row, for it was his purpose to take her with him in his kayak, although the sea was very rough. Then he rowed out with her. And when he had come a little way out, he sighted land, but when they came near, there was no place at all where they could come up on sh.o.r.e, and at the moment when the wave took them, he said:

"Now try to jump ash.o.r.e."

And when he said this, she sprang ash.o.r.e. When she now stood on land, she turned round and saw that the kayak was lost to sight in a great wave. And it was never seen again. She turned and went away. But as she went on, she felt a mighty thirst. She came to a place where water was oozing through the snow. She went there, and when she reached it, and was about to lay herself down to drink, a voice came suddenly and said:

"Do not drink it; for if you do, you will never taste the good things Qujavarssuk has paid you."

When she heard this she went forward again. On her way she came to a house. On the top of the house lay a great dog, and it was terrible to see. When she began to go past it, it looked as if it would bite her. But at last she came past it.

In the pa.s.sage way of the house there was a great river flowing, and the only place where she could tread was narrow as the back of a knife. And the pa.s.sage way itself was so wide that she could not hold fast by the walls.

So she walked along, poising carefully, using her little fingers as wings. But when she came to the inner door, the step was so high, that she could not come over it quickly. Inside the house, she saw an old woman lying face downwards on the bedplace. And as soon as she had come in, the old woman began to abuse her. And she was about to answer those bad words, when the old woman sprang out on to the floor to fight with her. And now they two fought furiously together. They fought for a long time, and little by little the old woman grew tired. And when she was so tired that she could not get up, the other saw that her hair hung loose and was full of dirt. And now Tugto's wife began cleaning her as well as she could. When this was done, she put up her hair in its knot. The old woman had not spoken, but now she said: