Part 1

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ANIMAL STORIES FROM ESKIMO LAND

ANIMAL STORIES FROM ESKIMO LAND

Adapted from the Original Eskimo Stories Collected by Dr. Daniel S. Neuman

by

RENÉE COUDERT RIGGS

With Illustrations and Decorations by George W. Hood

New York Frederick A. Stokes Company MCMXXIII

Copyright, 1923, by Frederick A. Stokes Company

All rights reserved

Printed in the United States of America

WITH AFFECTIONATE GREETING I DEDICATE THIS SMALL VOLUME TO MY LITTLE FRIENDS THE CHILDREN OF ALASKA

FOREWORD

The Eskimos are a kindly, industrious, smiling people. To our way of thinking their lives are uncivilized and cheerless. And yet, in their own primitive way, they find much happiness in life. They live from one moment only to the next. When food is plentiful, they gorge. When seals and game are scarce, they patiently do without.

Eskimo children never cry. They are never punished by their parents, for the spirits which inhabit their little bodies might take offense and depart. They play happy games as do children the world over, with balls sewed together from reindeer or seal hides and with toys carved from ivory, bone or wood.

The people are courteous and considerate. I have sat in their kasgas when the oomaliks (head men) were in council with my husband, who at that time was Governor of Alaska. The dignity and order of their debates would honor any legislative assembly. There is no interruption to a speaker until the final “I have spoken.”

The council finished, comes the customary dance in the kasga. The dance is always symbolic—the coming of spring, the flight of the ducks, the spearing of the whale, the wolf dance, or the killing of the bear. The men dance with grotesque gesture until exhausted, while the women with quiet feet, sway gently in unison in the dim light from the opening overhead. On the platform at the end of the kasga the musicians beat industriously on their drums.

The stories in this little book are adapted from some of the great number gathered through many years by Dr. Daniel S. Neuman, of Nome. It was Dr. Neuman who painstakingly made the splendid and unequaled collection of Eskimo antiquities and modern implements now on exhibit in the territorial museum at Juneau. The acquiring of this collection for the Territory was one of my husband’s last official acts as governor.

I have endeavored to rewrite these tales for boys and girls in the hope that they may take an interest in that quaint people, living still in the stone age, who, on account of their contact with the so-called civilized races, are gradually vanishing into the past.

Renée Coudert Riggs.

CONTENTS

Foreword The Journey to Eskimo Land Ivango or the Lost Sister The Robin, the Crow and the Fox The Proud Mouse The Crow and the Daylight The Orphan Boy A Race Between a Reindeer and a Tom-Cod Why They Have Summer on St. Lawrence Island The Lost Son The Crow and the Owl The Running Stick The Treacherous Crow and His Cousin, the Mink Good and Bad Weather How the White Whales Happened A Giant and His Drum Lovek and Seranak The Caribou A Fox Story Mi-e-rak-puk

ILLUSTRATIONS

“‘Who are you?’ said the boy” “Looking up into the tree, saw Kaytak standing by his nest” “At last he saw that it was shining from a big snow house” “Stopped to say good-morning to the fish” “Poured the black oil all over the crow” “The bear came round by the same track and saw the salmon” “‘Lovek, I have you at my mercy now’” “_Snap_, Mr. Smart Fox was caught at last”

THE JOURNEY TO ESKIMO LAND

The big easy-chair was drawn up before the fire, its hospitable arms extended, to embrace a father with a little boy on one knee and a little girl on the other. It was story-telling time.

“Well,” said Father, “where shall we travel tonight?”

The glowing embers showed two eager little faces. “Take us to Eskimo Land!” they said. So the father settled deeper down in the cosy chair and stretched out his long legs.

“Very well, to Eskimo Land we shall go. I will take you inside a ‘kasga’ and let the Eskimos tell you their own stories; but before we go there I must explain to you that in every Eskimo village there is one house called a ‘kasga.’ Now this kasga is the place where they all go to pass the long, dark hours of winter, with song and story. Sometimes they dance to the weird music of beating drums and chanting voices, and again, they sit quietly mending their weapons, their fishnets or spears; or again, some of them will be carving beautiful pieces of ivory taken from a walrus tusk.

“The house called ‘kasga’ in which they meet is built by all the people of the village. Every one lends a hand; even the little children do their share of the work. There are logs of driftwood to be hauled: there is turf or moss from the tundra to be put over the round roof, and digging to be done with the big bone shovels. So they all help to build the place in which they spend so much of their time. The men gather there when they get home from hunting. They cannot be out long in winter. It is dark most of the day as well as the night, and the storms are so bad they do not dare to go very far away. The women bring their sewing too, which they do with thread made from dried sinews from the leg of the caribou or from the white whale which the old women patiently pull apart into long threads.

“Now,” said Father, “shut your eyes tight and we will put on our invisible caps and go to Eskimo Land, right inside a kasga to see what is happening there this cold winter night.”

So the little boy and girl shut their eyes and clung tightly to Father’s hand while he counted very slowly, “One, two, three!”

“Stoop over,” said Father, “and creep on your hands and knees, for to get into the kasga we have to go through a long, low, tunnel-like entrance, until we come to a hole right over our heads. Here we are! I will give you a push. Jump up now!” And they popped right through a hole into the middle of the floor of a big room. Isn’t that a funny way to get into a house? They were in the kasga at last.

There are no windows to this house, but a round hole in the middle of the ceiling, or roof, serves both as window and ventilator. This, in winter, is usually covered with a curtain of bear or seal intestine, which keeps out the cold. Also it keeps out the fresh air. Sometimes, when the room is very full of people, the warmth from their bodies and the steam from many breaths form a moisture that drops down upon them like rain.

The room is square, and about it runs a wide platform. This platform is about four feet from the ground. All the men sit on it, while the women sit on the floor at their feet, with the little children gathered about them. There are lots of little children in Eskimo Land. They are good little ones, too. Their parents love them dearly, but they have to learn early in life to be good and patient, for sometimes they get little or nothing to eat for days at a time, when game is scarce and their fathers come back from hunting without any meat for them. So these little ones do not fuss and cry, for they know that they cannot always have what they want when they want it.

There are no electric lights in Eskimo Land, nor do they have big open fireplaces in the houses, with bright, crackling logs to keep them warm, for wood is hard to get.

About the floor of the kasga are placed lamps of heavy stone, hollowed out like dishes, in which wicks of moss soaked in seal oil are burned. The lamps give a yellow, flickering light and a little heat. The women take care of the lamps, keep them clean and see that they do not smoke or go out.

On the middle of the platform, at the end of the room, sits the “Ommalik” of the village. Eskimos do not have real chiefs like Indians, but in every village there is a rich man; that is a man who has more than the others of what the Eskimos use and need the most. The Ommalik is like a chief for the time being, a sort of boss, so we will call him chief for convenience sake.

In the kasga we are in now there are two shelves high up, one at each end, where the unmarried men, the bachelors, sit; and quite a scramble they have, too, in getting up so high.

On the floor at the feet of their husbands sit the married women with their babies in their parka hoods and their children playing near them, but the little ones keep very quiet and never dare to make a noise when the grown-ups are talking—which would be a good example for lots of little white children I know.

Huddled up in a corner sat a very dark little man, with long black hair that hung down into his eyes. He was as close as he could get to one of the lamps, and in his hand he held a piece of creamy ivory, upon which he was carving the story of a walrus hunt, in pictures. Near him sat a man busily mending a spear. Ommalik looked around the room. Soon his eyes rested upon Ungukuk, the little man carving the picture story. “Ungukuk,” said Ommalik, “will tell us a story.”

The little dark man stopped his work, but did not move or look up. No one seemed to have heard the chief speak. Some of the little children still slept on with their heads against their mothers’ knees.

Again Ommalik looked about him and said, “Ungukuk will tell us a story.”

Again there was silence, and the boy in the far corner went on mending his fish net. At last, after five or six minutes had passed, Ungukuk raised his head and peered into the dark faces about him. In a monotonous, sing-song voice, he began the following story:

IVANGO OR THE LOST SISTER

Long ago, in a village in the Far North, there lived a young man named Ivango. He was the oldest of the family and had four brothers and a little sister, eleven or twelve years old.

One clear spring evening, the little girl was playing out on the sand pit with some other children. They were playing “house,” and on the beach near them was the huge skull of a whale.

When they had finished making a toy house out of pieces of driftwood, Ivango’s sister climbed to the top of the whale skull to rest.

No sooner had she sat down, than suddenly the skull began to roll quickly toward the sea. It moved so fast and the child was so frightened that she just held on tight and screamed.

All the little ones ran after her, adding their cries to hers, until the skull plunged into the waves, turned into a whale and, with the little girl still clinging to his back, swam away out of sight on the gray ocean.

The children ran out into the water as far as they could, calling to their little playmate, but soon she was gone from sight. A sad troop of weeping children ran to Ivango’s igloo, to tell him what had happened.

Ivango and his brothers were in despair, for they loved their sister very dearly, as indeed did every one in the village.

That very night in the kasga they held a council as how best to find the little girl and bring her home again.

Ivango called all the shamans or witch-doctors to his house and bade them sing, hoping that they would sing something about his lost sister, and where she had been taken; but each one told him a different tale, so that he soon saw that they knew nothing at all about it. So he sent them all away again.

Now there was one woman among his neighbors, who was very wise, although not a sorceress. This woman could sing about many things that no one else knew, so Ivango sent for her and told her to sing.

After a while she began. She told Ivango and his brothers that the whale had taken their sister to a far off country. This country, she said, was guarded by two great cliffs of solid rock, which could open wide apart and then come together again with a crash like thunder, crushing to death any living creature daring to venture between.

Ivango asked her what they must do to rescue their sister. She answered, “You must make a skin boat so swift that it will go faster than the swiftest bird can fly. When the boat is finished, kill a young seal and take it with you. When all is ready, I will go with you to tell you what to do.”

They thanked the woman very much and went to work to make the boat as soon as it was daylight. They worked as quickly as they could, for they were very anxious to rescue their sister. When they had finished, they took the boat down to the shore, and waited for a bird to come along. Presently they saw a beautiful gray gull with a white breast, sailing gracefully through the sky. They got into the boat and paddled along as fast as they could, but the gull was soon far ahead of them and they could not catch up with it at all. This was a dreadful disappointment, for it meant a long delay. They came back to land very much discouraged, but Ivango said, “We must not lose heart so easily. Let us go to work at once and take more care this time that we are doing our very best. It does not pay to be in too much of a hurry.”

So they started making another boat, and this time they worked very carefully, for they must not fail a second time. They made the frame out of the lightest driftwood and covered it with white whale skin. First they wet the skin to make it soft, then stretched it over the frame and tied it in place with rawhide. When the skin dried it became tight over the frame and was quite water-proof. Ivango, who was a very strong man, made a paddle for himself from the shoulder-bone of a whale. When they had finished the second boat, it looked fine and they all felt happy again; but it had taken many precious days to make.

When all was ready they got into the boat and raced with the first gull that came along. This time they beat it easily, so they came back to shore to get their provisions and to kill a baby seal to take with them.

The woman, who was waiting to go along too, told them that they must watch for a flock of eider ducks and follow them closely. Pretty soon a flock of eider ducks flew over. The brothers and the woman got quickly into the boat and paddled off as fast as they could. When the birds sank to rest, the men would stop paddling and rest, also, or eat. When the ducks flew, the boat traveled along as swiftly as though it too had wings. When the ducks slept, the men stopped paddling and also slept, while the woman kept watch. When the birds rose again to fly, the woman would awaken the men and take her turn at sleeping.

They traveled this way for many days and nights, until at last they could hear a faint, rumbling noise like distant thunder. The sound lent renewed strength to Ivango’s mighty paddle. So powerfully did he wield it that they went faster than the ducks, who were leading them straight to their sister.

Nearer and nearer they came to the strange sound, and louder and louder it grew, until it seemed as though mountains of rock were being hurled together by the hands of some mighty giant.

Soon they could see two great cliffs drawing swiftly together through the ocean. They met with a mighty crash that seemed to shake the sea and sky. Ivango had trouble in keeping the boat upright, so high were the waves made by the rocks when they came together.

As the boat came nearer, the cliffs slowly drew apart, and some sea parrots and seals tried to pass through the opening, but the rocks rushed together and the birds and seals were caught and crushed to death.

Ivango felt his heart fail within him. Could they ever pass through alive, or must they all be crushed like the animals and birds? It did not seem possible that they could ever reach the other side of the cliffs. Oh! if they only might fly over in the sky like the ducks were doing! Then they would be safe.

Ivango, however, had not time to think about it. He must act quickly, or the ducks soon would be out of sight and then they would have no one to show them the way to their sister. So when the cliffs parted again, Ivango wielded his mighty paddle and the little boat shot into the foaming pass. It seemed as though they must be drawn down into the whirling waters and be drowned, but Ivango gathered his strength into one mighty effort just as the towering walls started to come together, and when they met with a deafening roar, Ivango and his little boat were safe in the quiet waters beyond.

At last they had reached their journey’s end and passed safely through the great danger. How happy and thankful they were to leave the menacing rocks behind!

They landed near a sandy cliff and walked carefully behind one another so as to make only one track in the sand with their mukluks. Their mukluks are their seal boots. Then they dug a hole in the ground, put the boat in it and hid.

The next day while Ivango was peeping out of the hole, he saw a man walking toward the cliff from the opposite direction from which they had come. When he reached the footprints on the sand, which looked as though only one person had walked up from the beach, he stopped and examined them carefully for a long time, then, jumping over, so as not to step on them, he went his way. After a while the man came back. This time he did not stop, but jumped over the footprints and went on. On his back he was carrying a lot of birds.

Now one of Ivango’s brothers was very brave and wanted to jump out to kill that man and take the birds, but Ivango would not let him.

Soon another man came along, and seeing the track, stopped to examine it, then jumped over, just as the first man had done. When he came back with all the birds he could carry, the brave brother could wait no longer. They were all hungry and tired and wanted the birds for food, so he sprang out and captured the man and hid him back of the hole, then they all had those fine birds to eat.

In the morning, being rested and refreshed, Ivango and his brothers got into their boat and paddled in the direction from which the men had come walking along the beach.

Soon they saw a village in the center of which stood a large igloo.

Ivango and the brothers felt sure their sister must be there, so Ivango went to the door of the igloo and entered. Sitting on a big white bear skin on the floor was his sister, looking very sad and lonely.

When she saw Ivango she sprang up joyously, but quickly put her finger to her lips, which meant, “Be quiet!” and whispered to Ivango, “O Brother, you should not have come for me. The whale man is waiting to kill you!”

She looked terribly frightened, but Ivango comforted her, saying, “That’s all right, Sister. We came for you and will die if we have to.”

Before long, they heard the whale man coming in. He pretended to be a kind man and very polite, but Ivango knew better than to believe him. The whale man could not fool Ivango.

After a little while, the whale man told Ivango to fetch his brothers to eat supper with them, and the brothers came. The whale man gave them a good supper with plenty to eat, but they watched carefully, for they knew that he was just waiting for a chance to do them some harm.

When night came the whale man suggested that they play all sorts of games. Ivango beat him every time, and he did not seem to like that at all.

The next morning he took them out to see a big ditch that had been dug during the night. All the men of the village were bringing logs of wood and pokes (skin bags) of oil to the ditch.

The whale man called Ivango and told him to look down into the ditch, and while he was looking gave him a shove. Ivango, taken by surprise, lost his balance and fell in.

Down went Ivango into the deep dark hole. When he reached the bottom he stood still and felt the sides of the ditch all about him, until suddenly his hands came upon a great stone embedded in the earth on one side of the hole. Digging quickly into the earth with his fingers, he dragged out the huge stone and found a deep hole in the earth back of it. Into this hole he crept, pulling the stone into place after him. Outside, the whale man built a big fire with logs and oil and shoved it into the pit, thinking that Ivango would be burned up; but Ivango was safe behind the rock, and the fire never even singed his mukluks. When the flames had died down and there was nothing left but ashes, he crept out from his hiding-place and called for some one to let down a rope for him to climb up by. Soon he saw the rope coming down. It was made of walrus hide such as is used for lashing boats. Ivango took hold of the end of the rope and his brothers pulled him out.

The whale man stood there looking much surprised to see him come out unharmed, and Ivango, springing upon him, hurled him into the pit. Then turning to the people, Ivango said, “If this man is unkind to you, bring some more wood and oil and we will burn him up. If he is good to you, let down the rope again and pull him out after we have gone away.”

“No, no!” they shouted loudly. “We do not want to pull him out. He is not good to us at all, but very wicked and cruel. Let us burn him up!” and they all ran to bring more wood and oil, much more than before and made a great fire themselves and threw it into the pit before Ivango could stop them.

Ivango and the brothers and their little sister hurried down to the sea, where the woman was waiting for them with the boat, and started off for home as fast as they could paddle.

This time they passed through the moving cliffs without fear or trouble, but no sooner had the cliffs closed together behind them, than a big white whale rose to the top of the water and pursued them.

Although they could make the boat go as fast as the swiftest bird, the whale was faster than they and was getting very close. Just as the monster rose beside them, the woman cut off the right flipper from the seal they had brought with them and threw it to the whale, which stopped to eat. This gave them time to get quite far ahead; but after the whale had finished eating he soon caught up with them. Then the woman threw out the left flipper. Again the whale stopped to eat, and again caught up with them, but they were nearly home, so they threw over the rest of the seal and paddled to shore. When they landed the whale hurried after them so fast that he swam right up on the beach, where they killed him and cut him up for meat.

The people of the village crowded about to welcome Ivango and his brothers and the little lost sister, and they all had a fine feast of the meat of the whale.

They lived happily after that and Ivango made many presents to the good woman who had helped them to find their sister, so that she was never allowed to want for anything all her life long.

When Nugukuk had come to the end of the story, he raised his eyes to the face of the chief. “And so is the winter shortened,” said Nugukuk solemnly. For that is the way they bring their story-telling to an end.

After that the father and the little boy and girl came very often to the kasga and heard different men of the village tell their wonderful tales, until they had heard all of the following stories. Perhaps next winter they will go back to hear some more.