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Rh up from the ground is quite common, occurring in Scandinavia and Iceland, among other places. We say: 'He who strikes the earth with a stick beats his mother; he who strikes a stone beats his father'—an idea which closely corresponds with the Eskimo conception, in which, no doubt, the man should properly be represented as rising from a rock.

As to the origin of us Europeans, they have a legend which is not altogether flattering to our vanity. An Eskimo woman, with whom no husband would remain for any time, at last took a dog to mate, and was brought to bed of a mingled litter of human children and puppies. The puppies she placed on an old shoe-sole and pushed them out to sea, saying, 'Be off with you and become kavdlunaks' (i.e. Europeans). Therefore it is, say the Eskimos, that the kavdlunaks always live on the sea, and that their ships are shaped like a Greenland shoe, round before and behind. The human children she placed upon willow-leaves and despatched them in the opposite direction, so that they became inland-folk or Indians (erkiligdlit or tornit) Precisely similar