Part 4

One day the old grandmother said to the little girl, “I am sorry for that poor man; he is so unhappy. You go to him and ask him to come and eat with us. His wife loved you. He will not hurt you. Try to bring him back with you.”

Very timidly the little girl obeyed, for in her heart she was afraid to go. When she got near the chief’s house she stopped and felt like turning back, for he sat there looking so fierce and gloomy that she was frightened; but when he saw the child standing there he motioned to her to come. Then she felt no longer afraid, but went and sat beside him, and told him what her grandmother had said. The chief answered nothing, but when she slipped her little hand in his, he got up and went with her to her home, where the old woman had already cooked him a fine supper of reindeer meat.

The poor man had not eaten for so long that he was starving, and when he had finished all the meat the old woman had, he sent the little girl to his own house to get some more.

As soon as the little one had gone out of the room, the grandmother said to him, “I sent for you because you have been kind to us, and I believe I can help you to find your wife. You must make a good strong staff of driftwood, then take this bunch of charms and tie it firmly to the stick,” and she gave him a little bunch of charms. These charms were ivory animals and faces and some tufts of feathers from sea birds.

Next she said that he must set the stick upright in the ground, in front of his house, very firmly, so that the wind could not blow it over. When he had done this he should go to bed and sleep. In the morning he must examine the stick carefully, and go in the direction in which the stick leaned. Wherever he stopped for the night he must set the stick up in the same way, and in the morning the stick would point in the direction he must follow to find his wife.

“If you obey my instructions,” said she, “the stick will lead you straight to your wife.”

Then the little girl came in with some more reindeer meat, and the man ate until he was satisfied, and went home.

As soon as he reached his house, he made a fine staff, tied the charms to it and planted it firmly in the ground before the door. Then he went in, and rolling himself up in a big bear skin, fell asleep.

He woke up in the morning feeling well rested, and more like himself than at any time since his wife’s disappearance. It was late and the sun had already risen. He hurried out anxiously to look at his stick. It was bent directly toward the North, so he pulled it up and started on his journey, with the staff moving along before him.

For two days and two nights he traveled without rest, having a hard time to keep up with that stick, which hopped along in front of him. Then, being tired, he stuck the staff into the ground and went to sleep.

When he woke, the stick was again pointing North. This time it leaned over more than before.

For three days and nights he traveled, then he slept, and in the morning his faithful staff was bending way over, still toward the North.

“Now my wife cannot be very far away,” he thought.

That night he slept again, and when he awoke, the staff had leaned so far over that the tip almost touched the ground; so he felt sure he must be near his journey’s end.

About noon, when the sun hung very round and very red, low down in the sky, he came to a huge snow house, the biggest house he had ever seen. Right by the house stood four posts close together, and on these posts was hung the skin of an enormous bird.

Hiding himself among some willow bushes, he watched to see what would happen.

Pretty soon a very tall man came out of the house and went to the posts. Climbing up on them, he took the skin, put it on, and flew away over the sea.

When the bird man was out of sight, our friend took his faithful staff and went into the house. There he found his wife, who was very happy to see him.

“I knew you would come and find me,” she said. “That terrible big bird carried me away in his claws; that is why you could not find my footprints in the snow.”

Her husband wanted her to come home with him at once, but she told him that it would be better if she could first see the bird man, who would come back soon again. Her plan was to send the bird man on some far distant fight, so that they might get away during his absence. She gave her husband some food, and he went back to his hiding-place to wait for the bird man to come and go.

After a short time the bird came back with a walrus in one claw and a seal in the other. Flying to the rack, he took off the bird skin, hung it up, and went into the house.

When he came in, he found the woman crying. “What do you want?” said he.

“I want a white whale and a hump-back whale. I didn’t want any seal. I am tired of seal and walrus meat. Boo-hoo!” and she howled and wailed dismally.

“Only be quiet,” said the bird man, “and I will get you what you want.” And he came out again and, putting on his bird skin, once more flew out over the sea.

When the bird was out of sight, the woman ran from the house to her husband, who put her on his back and started for home as fast as he could go. He was the swiftest runner in his village, and covered the ground pretty fast; but, after all, legs are not wings. It was not long before they met the bird man coming back with a whale in each of his talons. When he saw the man carrying the woman away on his back, the bird was very angry, and circled about in the air over their heads, calling out to them, “I shall kill you. First, however, I am going to take these two whales home, then I shall come back and kill you.” And away he flew.

The man ran as fast as he could, but just as they reached the banks of a big river the bird came in sight.

The man and his wife dug a cave in the river bank, and hid in it while the bird flew by looking for them. Nowhere could the big bird find those two people, although he was sure they must be hiding somewhere nearby. Suddenly he circled about, and flew down to the water. “I shall set my great wing across the river like a dam, and the water will rise and drown them,” cried he; so he stretched his great wing across the river and the water rose over the wing, and crept nearer and nearer to where the man and his wife were hidden.

The two poor people were in despair. They thought that surely they would be drowned, when suddenly the man remembered his father, who was a witch doctor, and some magic words came to his mind:

“Kluk-a-luk. Muk-a-luk. puk-a-luk. Freeze up hard, Or you must run dry.”

He said these words over three times aloud. At that moment the water of the river began to freeze. It was the month called “Naz-ze-rak-sek” by the Eskimos, which means October.

At last the river froze so hard and solid, that the bird’s wing was frozen fast into the ice and he could not pull it out. Then the husband killed the wicked bird, and plucking one of the long feathers from its wing for a charm, took his wife safely home without any further trouble.

They brought the old grandmother and the little girl to live with them, and they were all happy the whole winter long with the meat of the big bird for food.

THE TREACHEROUS CROW AND HIS COUSIN, THE MINK

Long ago, a crow and a mink lived together. The crow called the mink his cousin. They made a little cabin where there was a sand bar and willows. In summer time when the weather was fine they played together on the sand bar, which was bigger than any sand pile any children ever had.

One day they saw some dead salmon on the beach, and the tracks of a brown bear.

The crow said to the mink, his cousin, “What shall we do if that brown bear comes around here?”

The mink answered, “We cannot catch that bear. He is bigger and stronger than we are. He will kill us.”

Then the crow laughed, “Haw, haw! I know how to kill that bear; it is easy. Cousin, you will go inside the dead salmon, and I will put it in the bear’s track.”

“O no!” said the mink. “I am afraid. You go yourself into the salmon.”

But the crow was boss. “I do not wish to go into the salmon,” said he. “You go yourself. I am bigger than you, and I have wings. I will put you into the salmon, and I will put the salmon in the bear’s track, and don’t you move one bit, even if you are scared. I will tell you what to do. If the bear comes, keep very still. If he opens his mouth to bite, you just jump down his throat, and go in as far as you can. Bite him hard inside, and then he will drop dead.”

The mink was terribly afraid, but the crow said, “I will help you. When the bear drops dead, I will run out of my hiding-place, and cut a little door in his side with my knife, and you will jump out. If you do that, we will live well and have lots of meat to eat all winter.”

The poor mink looked very sad indeed, but did not dare to refuse to do what the crow told him.

“All right,” said the mink, “I will do it, but I know that I shall die.”

The crow went to work to prepare the big fish. He skinned it nicely, and when it was ready, put his cousin, the mink, inside of it, and laid it where the bear track was.

The mink was terribly frightened inside the salmon, because he knew the bear would eat him up. The crow hid among the willows and watched his cousin.

After a while the bear came around by the same track, looking for a fish to eat, and saw the salmon. First he sniffed at it, and noticed that it smelled a little different, but very good. Then he sniffed again, and, being very hungry, he opened his big mouth wide, and the mink popped right down his throat. Down he went, down as far as he could jump, biting hard all the time. The crow was watching from the willows, and pretty soon the bear danced around on his hind legs and fell to the ground. Quickly the crow flew to the bear, and with his little knife cut a door for the poor frightened mink to jump out of.

“See,” said the crow, “I told you it was easy to kill the big bear. Now we have killed him, we will have meat all winter, and will not have to go out to hunt in bad weather.”

The mink said nothing, but went to work to help the crow fix up the bear into fine steaks.

They dried the meat and hung it up, and there was enough to feed the whole village.

One night the crow said to the mink, “Cousin, once upon a time in the olden days people of one village used to invite the people of another village to come to a feast and dance. I should like to do that myself.”

“Why,” said the mink, “I have never heard of that before. I don’t know what that would be like, but I should love to see it.”

“We will do it,” said the crow. “We have plenty of fine bear meat for every one, and we will give a party. I will tell you what to do, Cousin, and tomorrow you will start, but you must do just what I tell you.”

Then they went to sleep, and early in the morning, the crow sent his cousin to the sea.

“You walk until you come to a village,” said he, “but don’t stop at that one; go right on until you come to a second village; pass that one also. When you come to the third village, stop, and the people will ask you where you come from. Say to them, ‘I come from a big village. We have a chief in our village, and he has sent me to invite you all to his big dance.’ If they ask you what kind of a chief you have, don’t tell them it is a crow, because if you tell them that, no one will come. Just say, ‘We have a fine chief.’”

When the crow had finished talking, the mink jumped on to the ice, and went toward the sea. He went on until he came to a village, but he did not stop at that one; he passed it as his cousin had told him to do, and went on again. Then he came to the second village, but he passed that one too, and at last came to the third village. Here he stopped, and the people were happy when he gave them his cousin’s invitation.

Everybody in the village wanted to go to the feast, and the next morning they all started off.

When they passed the first village, where the crow had told the mink not to stop, two people came out and asked if they might go also.

The mink said, “No, we do not want you.” But they came anyway.

Just before dark the mink got home to the crow. What was his surprise to see a fine village, where he had left only a cabin the day before; and a lot of people coming out to meet him and his guests.

The mink saw his crow cousin surrounded by a crowd of people, all dressed up in fine clothes, looking very fine indeed. The crow was so happy to see the mink coming with the people of the sea village that he started up a great shout. They all shouted loudly, and the crow, in his excitement, forgetting that he was a crow, tried to shout with them, but all he could say was “Caw, caw!”

The two people from the first village, who had not been invited, were watching very closely to see what sort of people these were who gave this great feast, and when they heard the crow shouting, “Caw, caw,” they called, “Look out, friends. We see that the chief of this village is a crow!”

Then the crow spoke up and said, “I am not a crow, people. Don’t be afraid. I promise you a good time. We will dance tonight only, then I will send you home.”

Before the dance they had some races. The marten came first, then the wolf, then the lynx. The Arctic hare came fourth, and fifth, the fox. The Arctic hare could have won first prize if he had wanted to, but he kept sitting down every minute. One of the people, a muskrat, had not come back from the race when the dance started, and when he came in all hot and tired the people laughed and made fun of him. That made him so angry that he was in a great temper, but the crow said, “Don’t you mind them; you are all right.” So he felt better about it.

Before the dance started, the crow stood up on top of the house, and called out, “People, I am going to do something fine for you. I am going to rub some oil on your eyes that will make you all see every animal when you go hunting. Last fall I killed a bear, and the oil is from that bear.”

At this the mink was in a terrible rage, because the crow did not tell them that it was he who had killed the bear, and he began to shout, “He lies, he lies! He did not kill the bear. I killed it myself.”

Well, the crow was so embarrassed and surprised when he heard his cousin say this that he fell right down from the top of the house where he had been standing.

The mink, too, was terribly sorry he had spoken so hastily, and he called out to the crow, “O dear Cousin, forgive me; I did not mean that. I was only jealous. People, listen to me. I did not kill the bear at all. My cousin told the truth. He really killed that bear.”

Then the crow was happy again, and flew back to his high perch, where he recovered his dignity.

Then the people began to ask about the oil, and all stepped up to the crow in turn, and he put it on their eyes.

The two people from that first village were watching the crow all the time, and suddenly one of them jumped up and began to shout, “Stop, people! Stop! He is putting glue on your eyes!”

There was great excitement, and the people tried to open their eyes, but could not, for their eyes were stuck together with glue.

All at once salt water began to pour into the house, and every one rushed to get out of the door, but their eyes were glued, so they could not see the hole to go out.

Now the crow took a big stick, and the mink one also, and all the crow’s people armed themselves with big sticks, and killed all the people the mink had gone to sea to invite, and who turned out to be seals after all.

Then the treacherous and tricky crow gave one of the seals to each of his own people and sent them home.

This is how the crow got the name of being the trickiest of all the birds, and no animal really likes him, because they know they cannot trust him.

GOOD AND BAD WEATHER

Long ago, on the shores of the Arctic Ocean, two Eskimo boys were walking from their own home to a far-away village. While they were going along, a terrible storm overtook them and they had to hold each other by the hand to keep from falling. Pretty soon the wind rose so high, and the snow fell so fast, they felt they could go no farther. In despair, they clung to each other, blinded by the snow, when a tremendous gust of wind suddenly caught them, and blew them against the side of a little snow house. How glad they were to find shelter!

Inside the house was an old woman, living all alone. She was very kind and invited them to sit down and rest; then she gave them something to eat, and told them that she was going out.

“Do not look after me to see what I am doing,” said she, “or you will be sorry.”

She put on her parka and mukluks, and took her stone skin scraper in her hand and went out the door.

The Eskimo women have a scraper which they use to scrape the flesh, or meat, from the skin of the animals they prepare for clothing. This scraper is somewhat the shape of a carpenter’s plane. The blade is made of a sharp piece of stone. That was the kind of thing the old woman took out with her.

The boys were devoured with curiosity, and after she had gone the oldest one said, “Let us go out and look at her.” But the younger boy whispered, “No, no.” He was afraid; but his brother was determined to see what that old woman was doing out there with her knife, so he persuaded the little one to creep softly to the door with him, and peek out.

Where do you think the old woman was? And what do you think she was doing? Way up in the sky she sat, scraping away at the clouds. She had already scraped off half the clouds, and where she had scraped, the sky was as blue, as blue as could be, but the other half was still covered with thick black clouds.

When she saw the two boys peeping at her, she let go of the sky and fell down. As she came into the house, the boys were sitting on the floor, just as she had left them, hoping she had not really seen them looking at her.

“You rascals! You bad boys!” she cried. “You did just what I told you not to do. If you had not looked out at me, and made me fall off, I would have cleaned all the clouds away, and we should never have had any more storms. But alas! I cannot go up there again, and now we shall have both clear and cloudy weather.”

Ever since then it has been sometimes clear and sometimes stormy, because the old woman had only had time to clean off one-half of the sky.

HOW THE WHITE WHALES HAPPENED

Long, long ago, on St. Lawrence Island, there lived with his grandmother a little blind orphan boy. He was so blind that he could not even see a ray of light.

The grandmother was a wicked old witch, and treated him very badly.

They were frightfully poor, and had to eat muskrats, for they had no one to go hunting food for them.

One day the old woman came in very much excited because she had seen a polar bear with two cubs. Now you must understand that the bear cubs are the baby bears, and are nice and round and plump and juicy and covered with white fluffy fur. The grandmother smacked her lips at the thought of those delicious little bears.

After grumbling about for a while, and scolding the boy because he could not see to go hunting, she handed him a strong bow made from driftwood and some fine arrows tipped with bone, and told him to go out and kill those bears.

“But, Grandmother,” said he, “how can I kill the bears when I cannot see to shoot them?”

“Come out and I will show you.” And she shoved him out of the house.

They sat down outside and waited for Mother Bear to come by with her babies.

The grandmother told the boy to hold the arrow pointed straight in front of him, and that she would tell him when to let it fly.

They waited a long time for the bears to come, and just as he was getting so tired he feared he would drop the heavy bow, who should come sauntering slowly along but Mother Bear and her two frisky babies. Just as they passed the very spot at which the blind boy was aiming, his grandmother whispered, “Shoot!” and he let fly the arrow. One by one he killed the three bears in this way.

Of course the poor little fellow could not see the bears at all and was not sure that he had killed them, but when he asked her the old witch would tell him nothing. She only scolded him and shoved him into the house.

Saying that she was going to gather sticks for the fire, she took her big knife, with a green jade blade and walrus ivory handle, and went out to skin the bears. Having carefully removed the skins, she hung the meat to dry in the cache, a sort of high drying-frame, where no wild animal could get at it.

When dinner time came the old grandmother feasted greedily on bear steak, but she gave only lean muskrats to the hungry little boy.

In the morning the little fellow crawled out on his hands and knees to search for willow weeds, which the Eskimos like to make tea from. They chew it too sometimes. He had to feel his way very carefully so as not to hurt himself, for of course he could see nothing.

While he was crawling along, reaching out with his hands for the willows, he heard something hopping lightly before him.

A little twittering voice said, “Good-morning, boy.”

“Who are you?” said the boy, and he stopped to listen.

“I am a snipe, and I can make your eyes see if you will let me.”

“Well,” said the boy, “I have always been blind, and I don’t think a snipe could give me my sight, but I could not be worse off than I am now, so you might try, if you want to.”

No sooner had he said this than the snipe hopped on his shoulder and began brushing his eyes very lightly with the tip of her pretty spotted wing. This she did gently back and forth many times, until at last he shouted gladly that he could see.

The little snipe did not let him go just then, but made him keep very quiet until she had polished his eyes so bright that he could see the tiniest speck of sand in the bottom of the ocean; then she sent him home.

Thanking his little new-found friend, the boy ran back as fast as his feet could carry him. When he got near the house, he dropped down on his hands and knees again, and closing his eyes, came crawling in. As he entered he detected the odor of bear meat.

“Grandmother, what is that good smell that makes me so hungry?” said he; but the old woman spoke harshly, and scolded him for not bringing back any willow weed. He still kept asking for food, hoping she would give him some of the bear, but she placed the muskrat before him again, while she ate the bear steaks. When she was too busy eating to notice him, he peeped at her with one eye, and saw her devouring greedily. When she was too well filled to eat any more, she went down to the sea to wash the bear grease off her hands and face, but she was so heavy with food that when she leaned over she fell into the water head first.

The boy heard a shriek and ran to the shore just in time to see her rise to the surface, turn into a white whale, and swim away.

Ever since then the Eskimos have believed that all white whales were once old women. Indeed, to this day, they insist that a bunch of white hair is found inside the brain of a white whale, which makes them all the more sure of it.

A GIANT AND HIS DRUM

Long ago, in a village in Eskimo Land, there lived a man with his wife and five sons, of whom they were very proud.

One day the oldest son came to his father and said, “Father we have always been in the same place, and seen the same kind of people. I think it is time for me to go in search of another village and see something of the world.”

So bidding them all goodby, he took his hunting knife and his strong bow with a quiver full of arrows and went away.