[ STORY-TELLING AND FOLK LORE.]
Like all other Eskimo, the Koksoagmyut are exceedingly fond of story-telling. Sitting in the hut, engaged in their evening work, the old men tell what they have seen and heard. The old women relate the history of the people of former days, depending entirely on memory, often interspersed with recitations apparently foreign to the thread of the legend. The younger members sit with staring eyes and countenances which show their wondering interest in the narration. Far into the night the droning tone of her voice continues reciting the events of the past until one by one the listeners drowsily drop to sleep in the position they last assumed.
I was fortunately able to collect a number of these ancient legendary stories, some of them of considerable length.
[ Origin of the Innuit.—]
A man was created from nothing. It was summer and he journeyed until he found a woman in another land. The two became man and wife, and from them sprang all the people dwelling there. [It is extremely difficult to get the native to go beyond the immediate vicinity in which he lives while relating these stories and legends. They invariably maintain that it was “here” that the event took place.]
[ The Coming of the White People.—]
The Eskimo were on the verge of starvation and had eaten nearly all their food. They saw that in a few more days death would come. The greatest Tungaksoak or great Tung ak determined to bring relief and prophesied that people having light hair and white skins would come in an immense úmiak. He placed a young puppy on a chip and another on an old sealskin boot, and set them adrift on the water. The puppies drifted in different directions, and in the course of time the one on the chip returned and brought with it the Indians. A long time after that, when the people had nearly forgotten the other puppy, a strange white object like an iceberg came directly toward the shore. In a few moments the puppy, now a man, announced that the people had come with many curious things in their vessel. The man immediately became a dog.
[ Origin of living things on the earth and in the water.—]
A long time ago a man who was cutting down a tree observed that the chips continued in motion as they fell from the blows. Those that fell into the water became the inhabitants of the water. Those that fell on the land became the various animals and in time were made the food of mankind. (This was the version given me by a person living at Fort Chimo.) Another person from farther west gave the following account of the origin of the living things of the earth: Previous to a time when water covered the earth the people lived on such food as they could always find prepared for them in abundance. They did not know of any animals at that time on the land or in the water. The water finally went away and the seaweeds became trees, shrubs, bushes, and grass. The long seaweeds were the trees and the smaller kinds became the bushes and grass. The grass, however, was in some manner put in various places by a walrus at a later date than the appearance of the trees.
A woman who had lost her husband lived among strangers. As they desired to change the place of their habitation, they resolved to journey to another point of land at a distance. The woman who was depending on charity had become a burden of which they wished to rid themselves. So they put all their belongings into the umiak and when they were on the way they seized the woman and cast her overboard. She struggled to regain the side of the boat, and when she seized it, the others cut off her fingers which fell into the water and changed to seals, walrus, whales, and white bears. The woman in her despair, screamed her determination to have revenge for the cruelty perpetrated upon her. The thumb became a walrus, the first finger a seal, and the middle finger a white bear. When the former two animals see a man they try to escape lest they be served as the woman was.