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AMERICAN MUSEUM GUIDE LEAFLETS 



advance. According to the myth, disaster would come if he should 

 succeed in catching her, for with his embrace would come the end of all 



things. 



This legend of the sun and the moon has many variations among the 

 Eskimo people and is sometimes termed the Sedna Cycle, Sedna also 

 signifying the sun. It is possible that we have here not only an allegory 

 of the great Arctic day and night, hut also the proof that there has taken 

 root in Eskimo imagination the idea of man's search after the unattain- 

 able. 



Copyright 1908 by Frank Wilbert sink**. 



POLAR BEAR AT BAY. 



From the painting on the North Wall. 



The right portion of the painting, realistic in the extreme, repre- 

 sents the twilight before the approach of the long night, the dramatic 

 interest resting in an encounter between an Eskimo hunter and a polar 

 bear. The hunter has left his sledge and, accompanied by his team, has 

 followed in the chase, lie has used his arrows and is now near enough 

 to give a thrust with his lance, the bear's attention being held by the 

 dogs. 



That part of the painting at the extreme left tells the Eskimo's method 

 of stalking prey. In the foreground on an ice-floe a hunter, harpoon in 

 hand, is crawling slowly toward two ring seals, which lie basking in the 



