James Mooney - Native Americans - 22 Books on History, Mythology, Culture & Linguistic Studies

If a man has committed a murder or made himself odious by other outrages he may be killed by any one simply as a matter of justice. The man who intends to take revenge on him must ask his countrymen singly if each agrees in the opinion that the offender is a bad man deserving death. If all answer in the affirmative he may kill the man thus condemned and no one is allowed to revenge the murder. (See Appendix, Note 4.)

Their method of carrying on such a feud is quite foreign to our feelings. Strange as it may seem, a murderer will come to visit the relatives of his victim (though he knows that they are allowed to kill him in revenge) and will settle with them. He is kindly welcomed and sometimes lives quietly for weeks and months. Then he is suddenly challenged to a wrestling match (see p. 609), and if defeated is killed, or if victorious he may kill one of the opposite party, or when hunting he is suddenly attacked by his companions and slain.

Table of Contents

Although the principal religious ideas of the Central Eskimo and those of the Greenlanders are identical, their mythologies differ in many material points. I will only mention here that they believe in the Tornait of the old Greenlanders, while the Tornarsuk (i.e., the great Tornaq of the latter) is unknown to them. Their Supreme Being is a woman whose name is Sedna.

The first report on this tradition is found in Warmow’s journal of his visit to Cumberland Sound (Missionsblatt aus der Brüdergemeinde, 1859, No. I, p. 19). The editor says:

The name of the good spirit is Sanaq or Sana, and he seems to be worshiped as the unknown deity. Nobody could give a definite answer to Brother Warmow’s frequent questions as to what they believed he was. They only said they invoked his help if they were in need. “Then we ask him,” one of the men said, “and Takaq (the moon) gives us what we want, seals and deer.” Another one said that Sanaq had lived on the earth and afterwards ascended to the moon.

In Hall’s account of his explorations in Frobisher Bay it is mentioned that the tribes of that country, the Nugumiut, believe in a Supreme Being, and the following statement is given (Hall I, p. 524):

There is one Supreme Being, called by them Anguta, who created the earth, sea, and heavenly bodies. There is also a secondary divinity, a woman, the daughter of Anguta, who is called Sidne. She is supposed to have created all things having life, animal and vegetable. She is regarded also as the protecting divinity of the Inuit people. To her their supplications are addressed; to her their offerings are made; while most of their religious rites and superstitious observances have reference to her.

It is of great importance that in the journals of Hall’s second journey Sedna is mentioned a few times (spelled Sydney), this being the only proof that she is known among the tribes of Hudson Bay.

The statements of the whalers visiting the Sikosuilarmiut and the Akuliarmiut of Hudson Strait correspond with my own observations. Before entering into a comparison of this tradition with similar ones belonging to other tribes, I will give the particulars of the myth as I received it from the Oqomiut and the Akudnirmiut.

Table of Contents

Once upon a time there lived on a solitary shore an Inung with his daughter Sedna. His wife had been dead for some time and the two led a quiet life. Sedna grew up to be a handsome girl and the youths came from all around to sue for her hand, but none of them could touch her proud heart. Finally, at the breaking up of the ice in the spring a fulmar flew from over the ice and wooed Sedna with enticing song. “Come to me,” it said; “come into the land of the birds, where there is never hunger, where my tent is made of the most beautiful skins. You shall rest on soft bearskins. My fellows, the fulmars, shall bring you all your heart may desire; their feathers shall clothe you; your lamp shall always be filled with oil, your pot with meat.” Sedna could not long resist such wooing and they went together over the vast sea. When at last they reached the country of the fulmar, after a long and hard journey, Sedna discovered that her spouse had shamefully deceived her. Her new home was not built of beautiful pelts, but was covered with wretched fishskins, full of holes, that gave free entrance to wind and snow. Instead of soft reindeer skins her bed was made of hard walrus hides and she had to live on miserable fish, which the birds brought her. Too soon she discovered that she had thrown away her opportunities when in her foolish pride she had rejected the Inuit youth. In her woe she sang: “Aja. O father, if you knew how wretched I am you would come to me and we would hurry away in your boat over the waters. The birds look unkindly upon me the stranger; cold winds roar about my bed; they give me but miserable food. O come and take me back home. Aja.”

When a year had passed and the sea was again stirred by warmer winds, the father left his country to visit Sedna. His daughter greeted him joyfully and besought him to take her back home. The father hearing of the outrages wrought upon his daughter determined upon revenge. He killed the fulmar, took Sedna into his boat, and they quickly left the country which had brought so much sorrow to Sedna. When the other fulmars came home and found their companion dead and his wife gone, they all flew away in search of the fugitives. They were very sad over the death of their poor murdered comrade and continue to mourn and cry until this day.

Having flown a short distance they discerned the boat and stirred up a heavy storm. The sea rose in immense waves that threatened the pair with destruction. In this mortal peril the father determined to offer Sedna to the birds and flung her overboard. She clung to the edge of the boat with a death grip. The cruel father then took a knife and cut off the first joints of her fingers. Falling into the sea they were transformed into whales, the nails turning into whalebone. Sedna holding on to the boat more tightly, the second finger joints fell under the sharp knife and swam away as seals ( Pagomys fœtidus ); when the father cut off the stumps of the fingers they became ground seals ( Phoca barbata ). Meantime the storm subsided, for the fulmars thought Sedna was drowned. The father then allowed her to come into the boat again. But from that time she cherished a deadly hatred against him and swore bitter revenge. After they got ashore, she called her dogs and let them gnaw off the feet and hands of her father while he was asleep. Upon this he cursed himself, his daughter, and the dogs which had maimed him; whereupon the earth opened and swallowed the hut, the father, the daughter, and the dogs. They have since lived in the land of Adlivun, of which Sedna is the mistress.

This tradition is handed down in an old song. I shall give the substance of it here, as it differs in some points from the above myth.

The story begins when the fulmar carries Sedna to his home and she discovers that he has brought her to a very wretched tent. The next year the father and a brother, whom I find mentioned nowhere else, came to visit her and take her home. The fulmar follows their boat and causes a heavy gale to rise which almost upsets it. The father cuts off her fingers, which are transformed into whales, seals, and ground seals. Besides, he pierces her eye and thus kills her. Then he takes the body into the boat and carries it to the shore. There he lays it on the beach and covers it with a dogskin. When the flood comes in it covers Sedna.

Sedna and her father are described by the angakut (see p. 591), who sometimes visit her house or see them when both dwell among the natives, as follows: She is very large and much taller than the Inuit. In accordance with the second form of the tradition she has only one eye and is scarcely able to move. Her father is also a cripple and appears to the dying, whom he grasps with his right hand, which has only three fingers.