Legends and Tales from Angmagsalik. 263 



to harpoon Ihem, so they had to duck down again. The boys now 

 took hold of the paddles of some of the kaiakers from below the 

 water, so that they capsized and drowned. 



A nerrajak (north-easterly wind) began to get up, and so the 

 other kaiakers paddled in towards land; but the boys followed 

 them and pulled away their paddles from them, so that they 

 drowned. Thus they made an end of the whole lot of them. 



16. THE MOON'S CHILD 



told b}^ Utuak. 



A woman whose children always died, saw, one day when she 

 was out to fetch water, a big sledge. It was the Moon's sledge. 

 He spread a hairless saddleback skin on the sledge, she lay down 

 on it, and the Moon had his will with her. She lost conscious- 

 ness, and knew nothing of it. 



When she came to herself again, she lay bathed in blood, 

 which was spreading all over the skin. The Moon's dog went up 

 to her and lapped up all the blood. Before the Moon left her, he 

 said: "You must not let your husband lie with you the first few 

 nights. When you get a child, you should not make an anorak for 

 it; for I shall be sure to give it one". 



When the woman awoke the next morning, she perceived that 

 she had a child in her womb, and the third day after her husband 

 lay with her again. The woman had a dog which could not bear 

 puppies; but now that the woman had a son, the dog also had a 

 puppy. When the woman had given birth to the child, the Moon 

 brought an anorak of bearded-seal guts for it; and when the wo- 

 man went out, he gave her a walrus paw which the child was to 

 eat. When that had been eaten up, she got a shoulder of bear. 



She held the child with its face down in the water, just as 

 long as a ringed seal remains under, and then, when it began to 

 move, she lifted it up. When the child began to crawl about on the 

 platform, the puppy began to crawl about on the floor, and when 

 the boy began to go out, the puppy went with him. The Moon 

 gave him a dog-whip, and put it on the roof of the passage-way 

 for him to take, and with it he whipped the dog to death with his 

 left hand. When the boy grew up, he whipped all the other child- 

 ren, and did not stop before he had been warned. Once he had 

 whipped a child to death; but the child had many brothers and 



