Not long after this, being in need of food, she walked out on the sea ice to see if she could not meet her son, and soon recognized him as one of two bears who were lying down together. He ran to her, and she patted him on the head in her old familiar way, told him her wants, and begged him to hurry away and get something for her. Away ran the bear, and in a few moments the woman looked upon a terrible fight going on between him and his late companion, which, however, to her great relief, was soon ended by her son’s dragging a lifeless body to her feet. With her knife she quickly skinned the dead bear, giving her son large slices of the blubber, and telling him that she would soon return for the meat, which she could not at first carry to her house, and when her supply should again fail she would comeback for his help. This she continued to do for “a long, long time,” the faithful bear always serving her and receiving the same unbroken love of his youth.
[SUNDRY TALES.]
(1) Two little girls, while playing about a cliff near Aivillik, with infants in the hoods on their backs, went into an opening between the rocks, which closed upon them before escape was possible. All attempts at rescue were unsuccessful, and the poor children, to whom for a time meat and water were passed, perished in the cliffs (Hall II, p. 222).
(2) Opposite to Niutang, a village in Kingnait, Cumberland Sound, there is a vein of diorite resembling a boot, and therefore called Kamingujang. A long time ago two enemies lived in the village. One day they stood on the beach ready to go hunting. Suddenly the one exclaimed, pointing to Kamingujang, “There he blows,” making his enemy believe that a whale was passing up the fjord and inducing him to look out for it. Then he killed him from behind, piercing him with the spear.
(3) At Qognung, near the head of Nettilling Fjord, there is a large white stone on each side of the fjord, somewhat resembling a bear. It is said that these stones have been bears which, being pursued by an Eskimo in the water, escaped to the land, but were transformed into these stones.
(4) A long time ago a dead boy was buried under a large stone. Before his relatives had returned to their hut the body was transformed into a hare, which jumped forth from the tomb. All hares come from this animal.
(5) It is said that albinos of seals and deer spring from an egg of about half a foot in length, which forms itself in the earth. The seal digs an underground passage to the sea, the deer a similar one to a distant part of the country, and there they rise. The albinos are said to be very quick.
I will add here an enumeration of the fabulous tribes of which I gained intelligence, but of some of them I only know the names.
(1) The Tornit, or, as they are called by the Akudnirmiut, the Tuniqdjuait ([p. 634]). It is remarkable that this people is considered here, as well as in Labrador, a tribe similar to the Eskimo, with whom they formerly lived in company, but who were subsequently expelled by the latter. In Greenland they are entirely a fabulous tribe, each individual being of enormous size, living inland and seldom hunting in the upper parts of the fjords. While in the western parts of the Eskimo country a more historical form of the tradition is preserved, it is entirely mythical in Greenland.
(2) The Adlet or Erqigdlit. In the tradition treating of this tribe a similar change occurs. The Labrador Eskimo call the Indians of the interior Adlet, the tribes west of Hudson Bay call them Erqigdlit. The Baffin Land Eskimo and the Greenlanders have forgotten this relation altogether, but denote with the term a fabulous tribe with dogs’ legs and a human body. The name Adla is used as far north as Cumberland Peninsula, the Akudnirmiut and the more northern tribes using the term Erqigdlit. It is difficult to account for the use of these different terms in both senses.