Eskimo Folk Tales Part 5

"We use only speckled skin for whales. And they are now at this time in the mouth of the river."

After this, they went to rest.

Qujavarssuk slept, and awoke, and got up, and went away to the north. And when he had gone a little way to the north, he came to the mouth of a small fjord. He looked round and saw a speckled seal that had come up to breathe. When it went down again, he rowed up on the landward side of it, and fixed the head and line to his harpoon. When it came up again to breathe, he rowed to where it was, and harpooned it, and after this, he at once rowed home with it.

The old man made the skin ready, and hung it up behind the house. But while it was hanging there, there came very often a noise as from the bladder float, and this although there was no one there. This thing the old man did not like at all.

When the winter was coming near, the old man said one day to Qujavarssuk:

"Now that time will soon be here when the whales come in to the coast."

One night Qujavarssuk had gone out of the house, when he heard a sound of deep breathing from the west, and this came nearer. And because this was the first time he had heard so mighty a breathing, he went in and told the matter in a little voice to his wife. And he had hardly told her this, when the old man, whom he had thought asleep, said:

"What is that you are saying?"

"Mighty breathings which I have heard, and did not know them, and they do not move from that side where the sun is." This said Qujavarssuk.

The old one put on his boots, and went out, and came in again, and said:

"It is the breathing of a whale."

In the morning, before it was yet light, there came a sound of running, and then one came and called through the window:

"Qujavarssuk! I was the first who heard the whales breathing."

It was the strong man, who wished to surpa.s.s him in this. Qujavarssuk said nothing, as was his custom, but the old man said:

"Qujavarssuk heard that while it was yet night." And they heard him laugh and go away.

The strong man had already got out the umiak [3] into the water to row out to the whale. And then Qujavarssuk came out, and they had already rowed away when Qujavarssuk got his boat into the water. He got it full of water, and drew it up again on to the sh.o.r.e, and turned the stem in towards land and poured the water out, and for the second time he drew it down into the water. And not until now did he begin to look about for rowers. They went out, and when they could see ahead, the strong man of Amerdloq was already far away. Before he had come up to where he was, Qujavarssuk told his rowers to stop and be still. But they wished to go yet farther, believing that the whale would never come up to breathe in that place. Therefore he said to them:

"You shall see it when it comes up."

Hardly had the umiak stopped still, when Qujavarssuk began to tremble all over. When he turned round, there was already a whale quite near, and now his rowers begged him eagerly to steer to where it was. But Qujavarssuk now saw such a beast for the first time in his life. And he said:

"Let us look at it."

And his rowers had to stay still. When the strong man of Amerdloq heard the breathing of the whale, he looked round after it, and there lay the beast like a great rock close beside Qujavarssuk. And he called out to him from the place where he was:

"Harpoon it!"

Qujavarssuk made no answer, but his rowers were now even more eager than before. When the whale had breathed long enough, it went down again. Now his rowers wished very much to go farther out, because it was not likely that it would come up again in that way the next time. But Qujavarssuk would not move at all.

The whale stayed a long time under the water, and when it came up again it was still nearer. Now Qujavarssuk looked at it again for a long time, and now his rowers became very angry with him at last. Not until it seemed that the whale must soon go down again did Qujavarssuk say:

"Now row towards it."

And they rowed towards it, and he harpooned it. And when it now floundered about in pain and went down, he threw out his bladder float, and it was not strange that this went under water at once.

And those farther out called to him now and said:

"When a whale is struck it will always swim out to sea. Row now to the place where it would seem that it must come up."

But Qujavarssuk did not answer, and did not move from the place where he was. Not until they called to him for the third time did he answer:

"The beasts I have struck move always farther in, towards my house."

And now they had just begun laughing at him out there, when they heard a washing of water closer in to sh.o.r.e, and there it lay, quite like a tiny fish, turning about in its death struggle. They rowed up to it at once and made a tow line fast. The strong man rowed up to them, and when he came to where they were, no one of them was eating. Then he said:

"Not one of you eating, and here a newly-killed whale?"

When he said this, Qujavarssuk answered:

"None may eat of it until my mother has first eaten."

But the strong man tried then to take a mouthful, although this had been said. And when he did so, froth came out of his mouth at once. And he spat out that mouthful, because it was destroying his mouth.

And they brought that catch home, and Qujavarssuk's mother ate of it, and then at last all ate of it likewise, and then none had any badness in the mouth from eating of it. But the strong man sat for a long time the only one of them all who did not eat, and that because he must wait till his mouth was well again.

And the strong man of Amerdloq did not catch a whale at all until after Qujavarssuk had caught another one.

For a whole year Qujavarssuk stayed at Amerdloq, and when it was spring, he went back southward to his home. He came to his own land, and there at a later time he died.

And that is all.

KuNIGSEQ

There was once a wizard whose name was Kunigseq.

One day, when he was about to call on his helping spirits and make a flight down into the underworld, he gave orders that the floor should be swilled with salt water, to take off the evil smell which might otherwise frighten his helping spirits away.

Then he began to call upon his helping spirits, and without moving his body, began to pa.s.s downward through the floor.

And down he went. On his way he came to a reef, which was covered with weed, and therefore so slippery that none could pa.s.s that way. And as he could not pa.s.s, his helping spirit lay down beside him, and by placing his foot upon the spirit, he was able to pa.s.s.

And on he went, and came to a great slope covered with heather. Far down in the underworld, men say, the land is level, and the hills are small; there is sun down there, and the sky is also like that which we see from the earth.

Suddenly he heard one crying: "Here comes Kunigseq."

By the side of a little river he saw some children looking for greyfish.

And before he had reached the houses of men, he met his mother, who had gone out to gather berries. When he came up to her, she tried again and again to kiss him, but his helping spirit thrust her aside.