11 



3. TRADITIONS. 



As an introduction the Ethnographical Memoranda just mentioned 

 contain two traditional tales, of which the first one shows a striking 

 resemblance to some Indian tales. In the beginning, it says, people 

 had heads like ravens, and all the world was wrapped in gloom, 

 with no change of day and night. At that time there lived a 

 powerful chieftain on the top of the highest peak. Suspended on 

 the roof of his hut were two balls , which were considered very 

 precious and carefully guarded. One day the guards being asleep, 

 some children knocked down the balls with a stick. They rolld 

 out through the door of the hut and down the mountain side. 

 People rushed after them and a struggle ensued for their possession, 

 which ended in breaking them. Light sprang from one and dark- 

 ness from the other. This was the beginning of day and night. 

 In the other tale we certainly recognise the Greenland myth of sun 

 and moon, but not so completely rendered as in one from Point 

 Barrow. 



The rather puzzling similarity mentioned in Vol. I p. 20 , of a 

 Samojedic and an Eskimo tradition certainly as yet seems too iso- 

 lated to be of any weight in questions about a common origin, but 

 still it reminds of laying more stress on the study of the relation 

 between the arctic folk-lore of the old and that of the new world 

 The Greenland version of the said tale (Poul Egede: Efterretninger. 

 p. 1 45) says : A reindeerhunter observing a crowd of women bathing 

 in a lake , stole the clothes of one among them and got her for 

 his wife, while the others by means of their clothing were trans- 

 formed into geese. His wife got a son, but later on both of them 

 escaped likewise in the shape of birds. He then set out on a 

 journey in search of them and met with an old man, who was 

 hewing a piece of timber. He wiped up between his legs with 

 the chips, and threw them in the river where they turned to salmons. 

 The old man said: From what side doest thou come? if from 

 behind, thou mayst live, but if from before, thou must die. He 

 answered: From behind, I am looking for my wife and son. The 

 old man then made a salmon out of a large chip and bade him 

 sit down upon it, but with the eyes closed. The fish then oonveyed 

 him to his wife and son. 



The Central Eskimo, according to Dr. Boas relate the story 

 thus: A man who wished to marry, went out in search of a wife. 

 He found a lake, in which many geese were swimming which could 

 be transformed into women by putting on their boots, which were 

 left on shore. The man here got a wife by stealing boots. The 

 rest its much like the Greenland tale. Only the salmonmaker allows 

 him to approach from before and not from behind; he polishes the 

 chips in order to make them slippery, and such like. 



Finally we have the Samojede story (M. A. Gastren : Ethnolo- 



