[RELIGIOUS IDEAS AND THE ANGAKUNIRN (PRIESTHOOD).]
Although the principal religious ideas of the Central Eskimo and those of the Greenlanders are identical, their mythologies differ in many material points. I will only mention here that they believe in the Tornait of the old Greenlanders, while the Tornarsuk (i.e., the great Tornaq of the latter) is unknown to them. Their Supreme Being is a woman whose name is Sedna.
The first report on this tradition is found in Warmow’s journal of his visit to Cumberland Sound (Missionsblatt aus der Brüdergemeinde, 1859, No. I, p. 19). The editor says:
The name of the good spirit is Sanaq or Sana, and he seems to be worshiped as the unknown deity. Nobody could give a definite answer to Brother Warmow’s frequent questions as to what they believed he was. They only said they invoked his help if they were in need. “Then we ask him,” one of the men said, “and Takaq (the moon) gives us what we want, seals and deer.” Another one said that Sanaq had lived on the earth and afterwards ascended to the moon.
In Hall’s account of his explorations in Frobisher Bay it is mentioned that the tribes of that country, the Nugumiut, believe in a Supreme Being, and the following statement is given (Hall I, p. 524):
There is one Supreme Being, called by them Anguta, who created the earth, sea, and heavenly bodies. There is also a secondary divinity, a woman, the daughter of Anguta, who is called Sidne. She is supposed to have created all things having life, animal and vegetable. She is regarded also as the protecting divinity of the Inuit people. To her their supplications are addressed; to her their offerings are made; while most of their religious rites and superstitious observances have reference to her.
It is of great importance that in the journals of Hall’s second journey Sedna is mentioned a few times (spelled Sydney), this being the only proof that she is known among the tribes of Hudson Bay.
The statements of the whalers visiting the Sikosuilarmiut and the Akuliarmiut of Hudson Strait correspond with my own observations. Before entering into a comparison of this tradition with similar ones belonging to other tribes, I will give the particulars of the myth as I received it from the Oqomiut and the Akudnirmiut.
[SEDNA AND THE FULMAR.]
Once upon a time there lived on a solitary shore an Inung with his daughter Sedna. His wife had been dead for some time and the two led a quiet life. Sedna grew up to be a handsome girl and the youths came from all around to sue for her hand, but none of them could touch her proud heart. Finally, at the breaking up of the ice in the spring a fulmar flew from over the ice and wooed Sedna with enticing song. “Come to me,” it said; “come into the land of the birds, where there is never hunger, where my tent is made of the most beautiful skins. You shall rest on soft bearskins. My fellows, the fulmars, shall bring you all your heart may desire; their feathers shall clothe you; your lamp shall always be filled with oil, your pot with meat.” Sedna could not long resist such wooing and they went together over the vast sea. When at last they reached the country of the fulmar, after a long and hard journey, Sedna discovered that her spouse had shamefully deceived her. Her new home was not built of beautiful pelts, but was covered with wretched fishskins, full of holes, that gave free entrance to wind and snow. Instead of soft reindeer skins her bed was made of hard walrus hides and she had to live on miserable fish, which the birds brought her. Too soon she discovered that she had thrown away her opportunities when in her foolish pride she had rejected the Inuit youth. In her woe she sang: “Aja. O father, if you knew how wretched I am you would come to me and we would hurry away in your boat over the waters. The birds look unkindly upon me the stranger; cold winds roar about my bed; they give me but miserable food. O come and take me back home. Aja.”