Native Americans: 22 Books on History, Mythology, Culture & Linguistic Studies. James Mooney

and the Fulmar

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      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.”

      When a year had passed and the sea was again stirred by warmer winds, the father left his country to visit Sedna. His daughter greeted him joyfully and besought him to take her back home. The father hearing of the outrages wrought upon his daughter determined upon revenge. He killed the fulmar, took Sedna into his boat, and they quickly left the country which had brought so much sorrow to Sedna. When the other fulmars came home and found their companion dead and his wife gone, they all flew away in search of the fugitives. They were very sad over the death of their poor murdered comrade and continue to mourn and cry until this day.

Having flown a short distance they discerned the boat and stirred up a heavy storm. The sea rose in immense waves that threatened the pair with destruction. In this mortal peril the father determined to offer Sedna to the birds and flung her overboard. She clung to the edge of the boat with a death grip. The cruel father then took a knife and cut off the first joints of her fingers. Falling into the sea they were transformed into whales, the nails turning into whalebone. Sedna holding on to the boat more tightly, the second finger joints fell under the sharp knife and swam away as seals (Pagomys fœtidus); when the father cut off the stumps of the fingers they became ground seals (Phoca barbata). Meantime the storm subsided, for the fulmars thought Sedna was drowned. The father then allowed her to come into the boat again. But from that time she cherished a deadly hatred against him and swore bitter revenge. After they got ashore, she called her dogs and let them gnaw off the feet and hands of her father while he was asleep. Upon this he cursed himself, his daughter, and the dogs which had maimed him; whereupon the earth opened and swallowed the hut, the father, the daughter, and the dogs. They have since lived in the land of Adlivun, of which Sedna is the mistress.

      This tradition is handed down in an old song. I shall give the substance of it here, as it differs in some points from the above myth.

      The story begins when the fulmar carries Sedna to his home and she discovers that he has brought her to a very wretched tent. The next year the father and a brother, whom I find mentioned nowhere else, came to visit her and take her home. The fulmar follows their boat and causes a heavy gale to rise which almost upsets it. The father cuts off her fingers, which are transformed into whales, seals, and ground seals. Besides, he pierces her eye and thus kills her. Then he takes the body into the boat and carries it to the shore. There he lays it on the beach and covers it with a dogskin. When the flood comes in it covers Sedna.

      Sedna and her father are described by the angakut (see p. 591), who sometimes visit her house or see them when both dwell among the natives, as follows: She is very large and much taller than the Inuit. In accordance with the second form of the tradition she has only one eye and is scarcely able to move. Her father is also a cripple and appears to the dying, whom he grasps with his right hand, which has only three fingers.

      There is a remarkable resemblance between this tradition and one related by Lyon (p. 362), who describes the religious ideas of the Iglulirmiut, more particularly the genii of one of their angakut. He says that the principal spirits are Aiviliajoq (Ay-willi-ay-oo) or Nuliajoq (Noo-le-ay-oo), a female spirit, and her father, Napajoq (Nap-payok) or Anautalik (An-now-ta-lig). Then he continues:

The former is in the first place the mother, protectress, and not unfrequently the monopolist of sea animals, which she sometimes very wantonly confines below, and by that means causes a general scarcity in the upper world. When this is the case, the angakok is persuaded to pay her a visit, and attempt the release of the animals on which his tribe subsist. I know not what ceremonies he performs at the first part of the interview; but as the spell by which the animals are held lies in the hand of the enchantress, the conjuror makes some bold attempts to cut it off, and, according to his success, plenty, more or less, is obtained. If deprived of her nails, the bears obtain their freedom; amputation of the first joint liberates the netsiq (Pagomys); while that of the second loosens the ugjuq (Phoca). Should the knuckles be detached whole herds of walrus rise to the surface; and should the adventurous angakoq succeed in cutting through the lower part of the metacarpal bones, the monstrous whales are disenthralled and delightedly join the other creatures of the deep. ***Her house is exceedingly fine, and very like a Kabluna (European) looking-glass(?); and, what is still more attractive to an Eskimo, it contains plenty of food. Immediately within the door of the dwelling, which has a long passage of entrance, is stationed a very large and fierce dog, which has no tail, and whose hinder quarters are black. ***Aiviliajoq is described as being equally wonderful in her personal appearance as in her actions. She is very tall and has but one eye, which is the left, the place of the other being covered by a profusion of black hair. She has one pigtail only, contrary to the established fashion in the upper Eskimo world, which is to wear one on each side of the face, and this is of such immense magnitude, that a man can scarcely grasp it with both hands. Its length is exactly twice that of her arm, and it descends to her knee. The hood of her jacket is always worn up. ***

      Her father has but one arm, the hand of which is covered by a very large mitten of bearskin. ***He is not larger than a boy of ten years of age. He bears the character of a good, quiet sort of person and is master of a very nice house, which, however, is not approachable, on account of the vast herds of walrus lying round it, which, with numerous bears, make a terrific howling. ***He has nothing to eat, and does not even require it; in which particular he differs widely from his daughter, who has a most voracious appetite. I know not if he is the father of all terrestrial animals, but he is certainly their patron, and withholds them at times from the Eskimo.

      The name of the father, Anautalik (An-now-ta-lig), i.e., the man with something to cut (with a knife), is very remarkable. Besides, it is interesting that the angakoq who visits the dwelling of Nuliajoq has to cut off her hand in order to liberate the sea animals. In the tradition related in the foregoing, Sedna has another name, to wit, Uinigumisuitung, i.e., she who would not have a husband; her father, Savirqong, i.e., the man with the knife. Often he is only called Anguta, her father.

      It is evident that Nuliajoq is identical with Sedna, though some peculiarities exist in the tradition as related by Lyon which it is rather difficult to reconcile with the myth as it is related among the Oqomiut. It seems to me that this difficulty arises from the mixing up of the angakoq’s visit to Sedna with the tradition itself. Indeed Lyon only refers to the angakoq’s visit to Nuliajoq, whom he considers a genius of a great angakoq, though he remarks in another place (p. 363) that she “has a boundless command over the lives and destinies of mankind.”

The tale of the angakoq’s visit makes the tradition very similar to the Greenland myth of