Page:Journal of American Folklore vol. 12.djvu/25

 Animal Tales of the Eskimo. 1 7

��ANIMAL TALES OF THE ESKIMO. 1

One of the striking features of the mythology and tales of the North American Indians is the important part which is played therein by animals. The share occupied by animals varies among different tribes, being at times concentrated on a few animals, at times distributed among a number. Sometimes animals occur rather infrequently ; at others, the larger part of a mythology is concerned primarily with them. On the whole, we can state that it is a universal characteristic of North American Indian tales to possess a considerable animal element.

There is another feature besides the frequency of animals. This is the manner in which the animals are conceived of. Nearly always they seem to be regarded as almost human. They speak, they think, like men. Sometimes, indeed, they would seem to be merely men with names of animals ; sometimes they appear to be men who have assumed the shape of beasts, but at others they are origi- nally animals who later become men ; and sometimes, in spite of human reason and power of speech, they clearly are and remain ani- mals in physical form. In this case, again, different tribes differ ; but we shall not be far from the truth when we say that, for the North American Indian in general, there was a time when men and animals were not different, but alike. Between them he draws no line in his mythology. As it has been put, " there is to the Indian no essential distinction between man and animal " (Von den Steinen, " Naturvolker Zentral Braziliens," 1894, p. 351).

We find, then, animals to be frequent in Indian mythology, and we find a peculiarly human conception of them. When we turn to the tales of the Eskimo, we find a striking difference. The animals are almost absent.

Of course there are frequent casual references to animals in Es- kimo tales which do not in the least invalidate this statement ; for we are now dealing, not with animals appearing like, for instance, houses or boats, as mere accessories in the stories, but with animals that are the agents or characters, the personages, of the tales. For this reason we must also exclude from our present consideration a body of incidents telling of the origin of animals. We are told by the Eskimo that a woman who was drowned turned into a narwhal, her twisted tuft of hair becoming the twisted tusk of the animal (Rink, "Tales and Traditions of the Eskimo," p. 99). We hear that an excitable man calling for his blanket, thus constantly shouting the

1 Paper read before the Eleventh Annual Meeting of the American Folk-Lore Society, at Columbia University, New York, December 29, 1898. VOL. XII. — NO. 44. 2

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