Copper Eskimo Traditions 77 a 



wheeled the dogs round, and fled back. The woman stayed where she was and 

 the bears passed right by her, pursuing her husband. Soon they overtook him 

 and tore him to pieces, then returned quietly to their camp without attempting 

 to molest the woman, who went home and slept. Early the next morning she 

 heard a noise as of strangers arriving. They were the polar bears, which at once 

 set about building snow-houses for themselves. But before the woman rose 

 and went outside they had all gone again, breaking holes in the backs of their 

 houses by which to leave. She never saw them again. 



C£. Boas, BuUetin, A.M.N.H., Vol. XV, pt. I, pp. 5271., 545. 



64. The Goose-wife 

 (Told by Ikpakhuaq) 



A man once found a grey goose bathing. He stole her clothes, and when 

 she came out of the water and was looking for them he rushed out and seized 

 her. Then he made her put on his own clothes so that she could not run away, 

 and took her home to be his wife. In time they had a child. But the grey 

 goose was not happy; her husband was always urging her to eat meat when 

 what she craved for was grass. At last she determined to leave him and to take 

 her child away with her; but when the mother rose on the wing the child was 

 unable to follow; it merely fluttered along the ground. Its mother said, "Cry 

 ni'l ni-l nvl." As soon as the young bird repeated this cry it was able to rise 

 into the air and they flew away together. 



The Goose-wife — Second Version 

 (Told by Ilatsiaq) 



A grey goose was once married to a man by whom she had three children. 

 One day, while the woman was gathering fuel, her husband in fun caught hold 

 of her and said, "Why don't you want to eat this grass?" Intensely annoyed, 

 she inserted feathers between her fingers and between those of her three children. 

 Then she cried to them, ni'y'h.uhn ni'^Xuhn qayatajlia'jici "Geese, geese, rise 

 up into the air." Immediately they rose on the wing and flew away. Only the 

 youngest was unable to mount into the air; instead it fluttered along the ground, 

 striving to follow them. The father ran after it and took it back to his home, 

 but his wife and the other two children never returned. 



Cf. No. 23; Rink, story 12; Kroeber, p. 170f.; Rasmussen, p. 165f.; Boas, Central Eskimo, p. 616; Bulletin, 

 A.M.N.H., Vol. XV, pt. I, pp. 179, 555; Golder, J. A. F. L., Vol. XVI, 1903, p. 98 et seq.; Jochelson, p. 370 (5). 



65. The Eagle and its Wife 

 (Told by Ikpakhuaq) 



An eagle, coming on a woman in the course of its wanderings, seized her 

 and carried her away to its eyrie, which was a hole in the face of a cliff. There 

 it kept her as its wife, leaving her at home whenever it went hunting. She 

 could not escape, for she had no means of descending the cliff. Her body 

 became all lacerated with scratches from the eagle's talons. Often it would 

 bring her young fawns to eat; for full grown deer it never attacked. The 

 woman preserved all the sinew and plaited it secretly into a line, which at last 

 was long enough to reach the bottom of the cliff. One day when the eagle had 

 gone hunting she fastened the end of the line to a rock and slid down till she 

 reached the ground; then she fled towards her home. The eagle, finding its 

 wife gone, followed her tracks to the settlement. It looked inside one of the 

 tents and the people were very frightened. But one of the men said to it: 

 myonaniyuma'yi.'pki.n xe'qini,q ha-'Xuyo tivaxyau'yajin "I want you to marry 

 my sister. Turn your face towards the sun and dance." But when it faced the 

 sun and lifted up its long legs to dance, the people shot it with their bows and 

 arrows. Then they cooked and ate it; only the woman refused to share the 

 feast, saying that the bird had been her husband. 

 72753—6 



