FAR away in the moon lives a great chief and shamans with strong magic visit him there. A long time ago a shaman went to visit the great chief. He flew like a bird up as high as the sky because of his magic. The sky was a land just like the earth, only the grass was long, and grew downward toward the earth. And the grass was filled with snow. When the wind blows up in the sky it rustles the long grass stems, hanging downward, and loosens the snow. When the wind blows the snow loose in the sky, it falls down upon the earth from the long grass stems, and men call it a snowstorm.
Up in the sky, among the grass, are many small, round lakes. At night these shine and men call them stars.
But the Malemut tribes say that the north wind is the breath of a giant. When he builds a snow house and the snow flies from his shovel, then there is a snowstorm upon earth.
THE BOY IN THE MOON
Eskimo (Lower Yukon)
ONCE upon a time, long, long ago, in a village on the great river, lived four brothers and a sister. There was also a small boy who was a great friend of his sister. The brothers were hunters and in the fall hunted at sea, but after the Bladder-feast was over they went to the mountains and hunted reindeer. But the boy was lazy.
Now the boy fell in love with the girl. One day the girl took up a dish of meat and berries and went out of the house. There she saw a ladder leading up into the sky, with a line hanging down by the side of it. Taking hold of the line, the girl climbed the ladder going up into the sky. Then her brothers saw her and began at once to scold the boy.
The boy caught up his sealskin trousers. Being in a hurry, he thrust his right leg into them and drew a deerskin sock upon the other foot as he ran outside the house. There he saw the girl, far, far up in the sky, and he began to climb the ladder to her. But the girl floated far away, the boy following her.