Week 10 Reading A: Eskimo Folk Tales

Many of the blog posts I read last week focused on the Eskimo stories. The Inuit have always fascinated me in that they are able to live in some of the harshest environments in the world and still thrive. I’m curious to see if harsh climates breed harsh folk tales.


The Coming of Men:

This origin story surprised me because it is not like many other origin stories I’ve read. Instead of the Earth coming up from a great body of water, the Earth simply was to be made one day and stones and dirt fell from the sky to create it. Children came up from the Earth and a woman sewed clothes for them and raised them to be men. Nobody knows where this woman comes from. And apparently there was only one woman because every child was male.

There was no sunlight and water was able to burn. The cost of no light meant no death, but then people just grew really old and there were too many people. So a bargain was made for there to be death AND light, but no death without light.

I guess the Inuit also prize dogs, because no other animal is mentioned in this creation story except for dogs. Man wanted dogs so he called for them and they came. I wish this was as easy for me as it was for this old Inuk because I love dogs. I want to roll around in a pile of dogs.


The Woman Who Had a Bear as a Foster Son:

A little old woman who usually receives shares of meat from young hunters is presented one day with a frozen bear cub. She leaves it to thaw, goes about cooking, and finds that it moves. Thereafter she feeds it and talks to it, helping it to grow strong and smart. The beart plays with the children, with men, and eventually helps the men to hunt seal. The bear is loved by all of the community, but tribes further to the North have other ideas. They want to kill the bear but are met with backlash when the bear kills one of their own and brings it back to his foster mother. She weeps and sends him away to live with his own kind, despite the sadness it brings her.

Cute lil' cub

Image: Huffington Post

Qalagánguasê, Who Passed to the Land of Ghosts

I’m beginning to learn that Inuit names are oftentimes pretty long and hard to pronounce. I don’t even know how to pronounce this boy’s name. Anyway, this story is about a boy whose family died and he had to be looked after by strangers because he was lame. When the villagers go out to hunt, ghosts come in and play and talk with him, including his family members. Eventually he decides to go with them into the Land of Ghosts and the story goes that he turned into a woman when he went. I find this interesting as there is so much controversy today about trans-gendered individuals. Did the Inuit believe a person could have been born into the wrong gender? I would like to learn more about their culture.

Check out the Eskimo Stories here!