Page:Journal of American Folklore vol. 12.djvu/180

 1 68 Journal of American Folk-Lore.

the house. They immediately prepared to pursue, but when they started, their sledges of course broke down, and the tornit escaped. 1

V. THE WOMAN WHO MARRIED A DOG. 2

Near the head of Qangirdluxssuang Bay (on Inglefield Gulf) lived a man and his daughter. The girl, however, refused to marry any one. Finally, when she refused suitor after suitor, her father grew angry and threatened to make her marry a dog. She warned him that if he said this often she might take him at his word. In- deed, one of the dogs just then broke his line and came into the house. She soon married him. When she grew pregnant her father and the other people drove her away, and the dog carried her across the water to an island, named Qemiunaarving, off the mouth of the bay. The dog used to bring her food from her father, floating it over by means of a skin of a ground-seal, which was prepared like an ordinary seal-skin float. One day the father, desiring to kill him, filled the skin with stones and tied it to him, hoping thus to drown him. But the dog was so strong that he kept on swimming in spite of the stones (which would have drawn down any other being), and finally, although he almost sank, reached the island in safety.

The woman gave birth to a great many children, both persons and dogs. When they were somewhat older, she one day ordered them to kill their father, the dog, 3 which they did, devouring him. Then she called her children in pairs, a male and a female together. " You two be qablunat (Europeans), and go away from here, and dress in clean clothes, and do not inspire fear." " You two be nakassung- naitut, and be savage, and also go away," she said to the next two. " You two be wolves," she went on to another pair ; "do not pursue

1 The cutting of sledge-lashings to escape from cannibals is found in a Green- land tale (Rink T. and T. p. 131), as well as in Labrador and East Greenland (Ibid. p. 448).

2 A widespread tale. Cf. Holm, Sagn, p. 56; Rink, Eventyr, i. 90 (abstracted in T. and T. p. 471); Boas, p. 587, 637; Murdoch, American Naturalist, 1886, p. 594; Boas, Journal of American Folk-Lore, x. 207; Turner, p. 261. It is also found among the Indians of Northwest America. Petitot, Traditions Indiennes du Canada Nord-Ouest, pp. 311, 314; Boas, Indianische Sagen von der A r ord- Pacifischen Kiiste Amerikd's, pp. 25, 93, 114, 132, 263; Krause, Die Tlinkit- Indianer, p. 269.

3 In all other Eskimo versions the woman's father is thus killed; there are also only two kinds of beings produced, the Qavdlunat (Europeans), and the Adlet, Timerset, or Erqigdlit (dog-men), generally five of each. The tornit (giants) and the inuaudligat (dwarfs) are well-known fabulous Eskimo tribes, though ordinarily not connected with this tale. What the nakassungnaitut are I could not ascertain. The introduction of wolves is curious. See S. Rink, American Anthropologist, 1898, p. 191, upon this tale in general.

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