Eastern Eskimo

Ravens.—Raven used to be a man. Now in those days, people moved about a great deal, hunting and fishing. One day a whole village was preparing to move. They were collecting their blankets and cooking boxes. Raven kept calling to someone that he had forgotten his kak—forgotten the lower blanket of deerskin used for a bed. Raven kept calling “Kak, kak, kak!” People said, “Get the kak yourself. Go back for it yourself.” So Raven did, but he hurried so that he was changed into a bird.

Raven still follows the camps. Even to this day when a camp is being moved, Raven flies over it and shouts, “Kak, kak, kak!” because he is afraid they will forget the blankets.

Gulls.—Some people in a boat wanted to go around a long point of land. Now the water was always rough at the point, and some of the women were told to get out and cross the neck of land. One woman got out with her children in order to lighten the load, but when she got on shore, the noise of the water prevented her from hearing what the boat people said. She wandered around the cliffs with her children, crying over and over, the last word she heard, “Go over, goover, over, ove, oh—”

Hawks.—Once there was a woman whose neck was very, very short. All the people in her village laughed at her. One day the woman went to a very high place up on the rocks, and in the mountains. Then she began to go there very often because she did not like people, so she was changed into a hawk. Now, when she sees any one, she cries, “Kea, kea, kea—who, who was it said ‘short neck’?”

Swallows.—Once there were some small children, who were very wise. They played a great deal on the edge of a high cliff near their village, and their play was always building toy houses on the cliff. One day when they were playing, they were changed into swallows. Even to this day they come to the cliff near the Indian village and build their houses in the side of the cliffs. They are very wise. Even the raven does not molest them, and the Eskimo children like much to watch these little swallows.

Loons.—Once a man had two children, Raven and Loon. He wanted to paint them so that they would look just alike, and he began with Loon. First he painted Loon’s breast white, and then he painted square spots on his back. When Raven saw how comical Loon looked, he laughed so much that Loon became ashamed and ran away to a near-by pond. Loon always faces a person so as to show his white breast and hide the spots on his back. Raven refused to be painted in that way. He ran away.

Guillemots.—Some Eskimo children were very fond of playing on the level top of a high cliff near their village, while the larger ones watched them. Now this cliff overhung the sea and the sea was still covered with ice. There was an icy strip near the shore, so that even the seals could not approach. The wind was cold and the children played hard to keep warm, shouting and calling to each other. Just then the strip of ice along the shore broke away, and the water was filled with seals. The men saw them, and ran for their kayaks, and put them into the water to pursue the seals. The children saw all this, and they shouted all the louder. The seals were so frightened that they plunged into the water and were out of sight.

The men were so angry that almost at once the cliff toppled over, and the children slipped down with the fragments to the bottom. When they reached the bottom, they had become sea pigeons with red feet. They still live among the fragments of rock and earth at the foot of the cliff.