17 



they perform this at once by their often described descent to 

 the goddess Arnakuagsak who resides on the bottom of the 

 ocean and is able at her will to keep the animals imprisoned 

 or set them free to the benefit of the sealhunters. 



Now tradition tells that Arnakuagsak was the daughter of a 

 mighty angakok who travelling with her in an umiak (skiuboat) 

 was overtaken by a gale and in order to save himself threw her 

 overboard. As she would cling to the sides of the boat he by 

 and by cut of her fingers and hands. But these parts of her 

 body were then converted into seals and whales, and she her- 

 self entrusted with the sway over them in connection with her 

 submarine residence to which she was taken on going to the 

 bottom. On the opposite side of Davis Strait we recognise the 

 same myth among the traditions collected by Dr. Boas. He gives 

 an interesting version of it in which Sedna (Sana?) is treated by 

 her father as just described and in dying also becomes a demon 

 or spirit but somewhat differing from Arnakuagsak. According 

 to Petitot the latter is unknown at the Mackenzie R.; should it 

 be affirmed, that the Greenland myth is also unknown in Alaska, 

 we must suppose that it has been invented under the migration 

 to Greenland, most likely by the angakoks and founded on elder 

 traditions. 



The main material of which the traditional tales are com- 

 posed consists of what we may call ELEMENTS OF THE FOLK- 

 LORE, namely events, animate beings or persons, properties of 

 the same etc., more or less reiterated in different tales. They 

 are combined in various ways, and such compilations can be 

 taken out of one story and inserted in another. Finally these 

 elements or parts are filled out and cemented by what tends to 

 form a new story. As these tales can serve only through in- 

 direct inferences to indicate the former homesteads and migrat- 

 ions of the tribes, their historical value will be essentially in- 

 creased by having collections of them from different localities 

 for comparison. Contributions of this kind' have lately com- 

 xi. 2 



