34 The Story of the New England Whalers 



of idolaters. If we could have had a Ruskin to 

 place their myths before us, we should have found 

 in them something more than idle talk; for, how- 

 ever told, the stories of the red men give us an 

 insight into the life of the igloo and the tepee not 

 to be obtained in any other way. 



As a final view of the Eskimo whalers, consider 

 their "Myth of the Raven, the Whale, and the 

 Mink," as gathered by Nelson near Bering's 

 Strait and printed in the Eighteenth Annual Re- 

 port of the Bureau of Ethnology: 



Seeing a Whale near the shore the Raven shouted : 

 "When you come up again shut your eyes and open 

 wide your mouth." The Whale did as he was ordered, 

 and the Raven, "carrying his fire drill under his wings," 

 flew "straight down the Whale's throat." As the whale 

 plunged under water once more the Raven found itself 

 "at the entrance of a fine room, at one end of which 

 burned a lamp," and he "was surprised to see a very 

 beautiful young woman sitting there," the young woman 

 being "the shade or inua of the whale which was a 

 female." 



The young woman made the Raven welcome and 

 went about preparing him a meal of berries and oil. 

 Every time she went out of the room while thus engaged, 



