BOAS.I FLIGHT TO THE MOON. 599 



thijig. He said: "My wife, Ululiernang, will soon enter and we will 

 perform a dance. Mind that you do not laugh, else she will slit open 

 your belly with her knife, take out your intestines, and give them to 

 my ermine which lives in yon little house outside." 



Before long a woman entered carrying an oblong vessel in which 

 lier ulo (see p. 518) lay. She piit it on the fleor and stooped forward, 

 turning the vessel like a whirligig. Then she commenced dancing, 

 and when she turned her back toward the angakoq it was made mani- 

 fest that she was hollow. She had no back, backbone, or entrails, 

 but only lungs and heart. 



The man joined her dance and. their attitudes and grimaces looked 

 so funny that the angakoq could scarcely keep from laughing. But 

 just at the right moment he called to mind the warnings of the man 

 in the moon and rushed out of the house. The man cried after him, 

 " Uqsureliktaleqdjuin " ("Provide yovirself with your large white 

 bear tornaq").' Thus he escaped unhurt. 



Upon another visit he succeeded in mastering his inclination to 

 laugh and was hospitably received by the man after the performance 

 was finished. He showed him all around the house and let him look 

 into a small additional building near the entrance. There he saw 

 large herds of deer apparently roaming over vast plains, and the 

 man of the moon allowed him to choose one animal, which fell 

 immediately through a hole upon the earth. In another building 

 he saw a profusion of seals swimming in an ocean and was allowed 

 to pick out one of these also. At last the man in the moon sent him 

 away, when his tornaq carried him back to his hut as quickly as he 

 had 'left it. 



During his visit to the moon his body had lain motionless and 

 soulless, but now it revived. The thongs with which his hands had 

 been fastened had fallen down, though they had been tied in firm 

 knots. The angakoq felt almost exhausted, and when the lamps 

 were relighted he related to the eagerly listening men his adventures 

 during his flight to the moon. 



It is related in the course of this tradition that the man in the moon 

 has a qaumat, some kind f)f light or fire, but I could not reach 

 a satisfactory understanding of the meaning of this word. It is 

 derived from qauq (daylight) and is used in Greenland for the moon 

 herself. Among the Eskimo of BafiBn Land it is only employed in 

 the angakoq language, in which the m<nm is ciIIimI (|auniavun. the 

 sun qaumativun. Another name of the iikh.h is,iiiiiiL;,i (Ikt Knither), 

 in reference to the first legend. The natives alsci liflicvc that tiie man 

 in the moon makes the snow. He is generally considered a pi-otector 

 of orphans and of the poor, and sometimes descends h-om his house 

 on a sledge drawn liy his doi;-. Tirie'tiang, in order to help them (see 

 the tradition nf Qau(lj;i(|(l,iii(|. ]). 630). 



'Uqsurelik. with l)lulit)er. si-;iiilius in the lanp^iiageof the angakut the white bear; 

 lauk, large: -leqilj(>r[XKi, lie jprDvides himself with. 



