Page:Journal of American Folklore vol. 12.djvu/181

 Tales of the Smith Sound Eskimo. 1 69

people nor frighten dogs, and go away." "And you two be tor- nit," she said, " and go away from here ; but you shall have no dogs, and shall fear them, but you shall not make people afraid." "And you be inugaudligat," she added to the last pair. Thus she sent them all away. The qablunat sailed away in the sole of a boot. And then she went back to live with her father.

Another version relates that the father wanted his daughter to marry the dog. 1 She, however, was unwilling, and in order to escape fled to the island. The dog pursued her, however, and married her. Her father, pitying her, brought her food in his kayak. After send, ing off her children, she finally starved on the island.

VI. THE ORIGIN OF THE NARWHAL. 2

There was a blind boy (or young man) who lived with his mother and sister. They went to a place where there was no one and lived alone. One day, when they were in their tent, a bear came up to it. Though the boy was blind he had a bow, and the woman aimed it at the bear for him. The arrow struck the bear and killed it. The mother, however, deceived her son and told him he had missed it. She cut it up and then cooked it. The young man now smelled the bear-meat, and asked his mother whether it was not bear he was smelling. She, however, told him he was mistaken. Then she and her daughter ate it, but she would give him nothing. His sister, however, put half her food in her dress secretly, to give him later. When her mother asked her why she was eating so much (noticing that she seemed to eat an unusual quantity), the girl answered that she was hungry. Later, when her mother was away, she gave the meat to her brother. In this way he discovered that his mother had deceived him. Then he wished for another chance to kill some- thing, when he might not be thus deceived by his mother.

One day, when he was out of doors, a large loon came down to him and told him to sit on its head. The loon then flew with him toward its nest, and finally brought him to it, on a large cliff. After they had reached this, it began to fly again, and took him to a pond [the ocean ?]. The loon then dived with him, in order to make him recover his eyesight. It would dive and ask him whether he was smothering ; when he answered that he was, it took him above the surface to regain his breath. Thus they dived, until the blind boy

1 These two conflicting versions are known also in Greenland.

2 This tale also is of wide occurrence, being found among the Athabascan tribes, and even among the Heiltsuk on the Pacific coast. It varies remarkably little over this great extent of country. Cf. Holm, Sagn, p. 31 ; Rink, T. a>ni T. p. 99 ; Boas, p. 625 ; Petitot, Traditions Indiennes, pp. 84, 226 ; Boas, Indianische Sagen, p. 229.

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