584 THE CENTRAL ESKIMO. 



birds, where there is never hunger, where my tent is made of the 

 most beautiful skins. You shall rest on soft bearskins. My fellows, 

 the fulmars, shall bring you all your heart may desire; their feathers 

 shall clothe you; your lamp shall always be filled with oil. your pot 

 with meat." Sedna could not long resist such wooing and they 

 went together over the vast sea. When at last they reached the 

 country of the fulmar, after a long and hard journey, Sedna dis- 

 covered that her spouse had shamefully deceived her. Her new 

 home was not built of beautiful pelts, but was covered with wretched 

 fishskins, full of holes, that gave free entrance to wind and snow. 

 Instead of soft reindeer skins her bed was made of hard walrus hides 

 and she had to live on miserable fish, which the birds brought her. 

 Too soon she discovered that she had thrown away her opportuni- 

 ties when in her foolish pride she had rejected the Inuit youth. In 

 her woe she sang: "Aja. O father, if you knew how wretched I am 

 you would come to me and we would hurry away in your boat over 

 the waters. The birds look unkindly upon me the stranger; cold 

 winds roar about my bed; they give me but miserable food. O 

 come and take me back home. Aja." 



When a year had passed and the sea was again stirred by warmer 

 winds, the father left his country to visit Sedna. His daughter 

 greeted him joyfully and besought him to take her back home. The 

 father hearing of the outrages wrought iipon his daughter deter- 

 mined ujDon revenge. He killed the fulmar, took Sedna into his 

 boat, and they quickly left the country which had brought so much 

 sorrow to Sedna. When the other fulmars came home and found 

 their companion dead and his wife gone, they all flew away in search 

 of the fugitives. They were very sad over the death of their poor 

 murdered comrade and continue to mourn and cry until this day. 



Having flown a short distance they discerned the boat and stirred 

 up a heavy storm. The sea rose in immense waves that threatened 

 the pair with destruction. In this mortal peril the father determined 

 to ofi^er Sedna to the birds and flung her overboard. She 'clung to 

 the edge of the boat with a death grip. The cruel father then took 

 a knife and cut off the first joints of her fingers. Falling into the 

 sea they were transformed into whales, the nails turning into whale- 

 bone. Sedna holding on to the boat more tightly, the second finger 

 joints fell under the sharp knife and swam away as seals {Pagomys 

 foRHdus); when the father cut ofi" the stumps of the fingers they 

 became ground seals (Plioai hurlintii). Meantime the storm sub- 

 sided, for the fulmars thouL^ht Sedna was drowned. The father 

 then allowed her to come into the l)eiat again. Biit from that time 

 she cherished a deadly hatred against him and swore bitter revenge. 

 ■ After they got ashore, she called her dogs and let them gnaw off the 

 feet and hands of her father while he was asleep. Upon this he 

 cursed himself, his daughter, and the dogs which had maimed him; 



