PAINTINGS OF GREENLAND ESKIMO 



213 



ESKIMO CONCEPTION OF THE MOON, 

 HUNTER IN PURSUIT OF THE SUN. 



Copyright 1908 by Frank Wilbert Stokes. 

 Courtesy of Scribner's Magrizine. 



the moon and ushering in the long winter, and Sukh-eh-nukli, standing 

 for the sun, a goddess accompanied by summer and plenty. Ahn-ing- 

 ah-neh is dressed in winter garb and is driving his team of dogs. The 

 lower part of the figure, like the dogs and sledge, are shadowy in the 

 painting, but the upper part reaching forward in the chase, the head 

 and the right arm with its lashing whip, stand out strong and dark as the 

 forward part of a night cloud that sweeps over the glacier-covered heights. 

 Sukh-eh-nukh is represented by a figure uncovered to the waist (the 

 Eskimo, both men and women, occasionally strip off the upper garments 

 in the summer sun). She carries in her right hand an Eskimo lamp, 

 shown as a sun-dog or parhelion such as is often seen near the horizon 

 at sunrise and sunset in the Arctics. She is a part of a cumulus summer 

 cloud that floats near her head. Summer birds are about her, a long 

 line following from the far away horizon. Two fulmar gulls are flying 

 in front of her, and two harbor seals are crying to her, the " Mother of 

 the Seals," from floating ice below, where also little Arctic puffins are 

 ranged in military line. 



