168 CRUISE OF THE NEPTUNE 
beneath the sea, where she became queen, living in a house built 
of stone and whalebone, and guarded by her husband, the dog. 
She cannot walk, but ' hunches ' over the ground with one foot 
beneath her body. Her father was also drowned later, and now 
lives with her, wrapped up in his tent cover, and is employed 
torturing the souls of the wicked. The souls of sea animals go 
to her after remaining three days by the body after death. This 
is the reason a great deal of respect is shown to the bodies of 
these animals, and is the origin of a number of taboos in connec- 
tion with them. If the soul is displeased on its departure for 
the abode of Nuliayok it informs her, and causes her hands to 
swell; then she revenges herself by bringing ill-luck or sickness 
upon the Eskimos. If all the ceremonies are properly observed 
they please the soul of the animal, and other animals will allow 
themselves to be killed by such considerate people. 
It thus appears that the Eskimos existed before their goddess, 
there being no legend regarding the first Eskimo. The Eskimo 
story differs in regard to the origin of the white race and the 
Indians, who are the offspring of nuliayok and her dog. One 
story runs that Nuliayok was deceived by the dog, who took the 
form of a young man. When her father found her with a litter 
of white and red pups he was very angry, and placed her With 
her strange progeny upon an island, sending food to her by the 
dog. Later he drowned the dog, and brought her food in his 
kyak. Nuliayok, to revenge the death of the dog, set the pups on 
her father, and so killed him. Being now without any source of 
food for herself or the pups, she made two large slippers; into 
one she put the white pups and into the other the red, and set 
them afloat before a north wind, so that they landed on southern 
lands and became the ancestors of the whites and the Indians. 
There is a goddess of the land-animals called Pukimma, who 
appears to be closely identified with Nuliayok, and may be the 
same personage under a different name. 
