Language and Folklore. 409 
[ay] No. 218. Niwaaniaq (or Niwagiaq). 
tail, cf. WGr. niwap:a' ‘(the whale with its tail) swings it (e. g. a boat) aside.’ 
— The blade of grass is not found in the Cape York variants, in which the 
name of the soul, Avovang, seems to mean ‘the great eider-duck.’ The con- 
clusion of the myth is just the same in the Cape York version, as in the one 
from Ammassalik. However the account of the sojourn of the soul in a rein- 
deer is a feature which this version, in contrast to the East Greenland variant, 
shares in common with those from the other side of Davis Strait. The shout, 
“kick out towards the uttermost bounds of heaven!” is found from East 
Greenland to Hudson Bay. 
From an artistic point of view the Alaskan myth is far superior to these 
East Eskimo off-shots. In the majestic and fantastic profundity of its compo- 
sition, this myth from the old native soil of Bering Straits seems like one of 
the most forceful embodiments of a high culture, long since dead. Here the 
ancient psychology and view of life of the Eskimo people has found expres- 
sion, their idea of the homogeneity of the souls of people and animals, of 
the innate power of the soul to transmigrate, merely as the result of a magic 
wish, perhaps no longer possible, but put into effect once in the past, when 
the human race appeared and culture arose. 
This encrusted idea of culture has followed the tradition on its wander- 
ing eastward, while the legend itself has become an almost unrecognisable 
fossil in its new surroundings. There is, however, a common motive: the 
tracing of a human soul through the kingdoms of nature from animal to 
animal. This gives the tale an almost didactic character. 
The two accounts seem to reflect two different stages of cultural develop- 
ment separated by just as great a lapse of time as of place. The entire mo- 
tive, the depicting of the genesis of a culture is wanting in the East Eskimo 
territory. This is in accord with the impression given by many other facta, 
namely, that the East Eskimo community between the Mackenzie River and 
East Greenland rest on a lower plane or on a more primitive cultural basis 
than that of Alaska. In this eastern section of the Eskimo countries we hear 
for the most part only echoes and reverberations of a one-time highly de- 
veloped civilisation. 
In the Niwaaniag myth as it is found penetrating into the furthest corner 
of Greenland it is not the origin of a civilization which is portrayed. It is 
apparently an animal fable and yet something more. The story tells of the 
wanderings of a human soul on the earth, homeless until it has reached its 
true womb and received its true name in human speech; it will then have 
passed through a series of existences between death and rebirth, and only 
when reassociated with its own name can the soul again become a human 
being. That is why the name of the dead shall be given to a new-born child, 
for forefathers are reborn in their descendants. 
Here, indeed, is a fossilized fragment of the primeval pagan Bible of 
the Eskimo race. 
not determine the sex of the creeping individual but means in general: “moves. 
or creeps into a female being’, and the words for ‘grass’ and ‘Greenland seal’ 
are added in the ablative case. Cf. р. 412, note (1. 
