Page:The Netsilik Eskimos (1931).djvu/282

When evening came, and they had lain down to sleep, the man's dog came in, but in human form. He wore a dog's tooth on his breast as an amulet. As soon as the others had fallen asleep he lay down beside the girl and embraced her; and then it hung fast with her and dragged her out into the entrance passage. In that way they became man and wife. After that the dog used to come every evening. The woman became pregnant, and when she had got "a big stomach" and she would soon be confined, her father rowed her over to an island, as he was not going to have all the trouble there would be with the children she was going to have. On the island the woman gave birth to a litter of young that later on were to become white men and Indians. The father, it is said, used to go to them in his kayak and take meat to them.

But when the children had grown up, the woman said to them one day:

"Your grandfather was not wise that time he wanted me to have a dog for a husband. Throw yourselves upon him when he brings you food."

The story goes that the girl's young started to lick the kayak for blood the next time her father came with meat, and then they threw themselves upon him and tore him to pieces.

After that the woman sent her young out into the world. To those who were to become Indians she gave them her inner kamiks for boats and let them go away, saying that they were to be hostile to all men. But those that were to be white men she exhorted to be of a friendly disposition, and set them out in her outer kamiks; these were to be their ships. But when she tried to go on board to them the children threw her into the water. She seized hold of the edge of the boat, but they chopped off the first joint of her fingers. After a little while they came up as seals. Again the mother got hold of the edge of the boat, but they chopped off the next joint of her fingers. It was a little while before anything came up out of the water, and then her finger joints came up as bearded seals: again she caught hold of the gunwale, and again they chopped a joint off her fingers. It was some time before anything came up, and then they came up as walruses.

After that the woman sank to the bottom of the sea, where she became Nuliajuk, the mother of the beasts.

There is no particular tradition explaining how Nuliajuk became the ruler of other beasts too. But she is, and it is sufficient to know