Page:Eskimo Folk-Tales (1921).djvu/43

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ESKIMO FOLK-TALES
33

Then it tried to get up over the walls at the back part of the house, by taking hold of the grass in the turf blocks. But when it got there, the bird's food was the only thing it saw. Again it tried to get a little farther, seeing that the bird appeared not to heed it at all, but then suddenly the bird turned and bit a hole just above its flipper. And this was very painful, so that the Tupilak floundered about with pain, and floundered about till it came right out into the water.

And because of all these happenings, it had now become so angered that it swam back at once to the man who had made it, in order to eat him up. And when it came there, he was sitting in his kayak with his face turned towards the sun, and telling no other thing than of the Tupilak which he had made. For a long time the Tupilak lay there beneath him, and looked at him, until there came this thought:

"Why did he make me a Tupilak, when afterwards all the trouble was to come upon me?"

Then it swam up and attacked the kayak, and the water was coloured red with blood as it ate him. And having thus found food, the Tupilak felt well and strong and very cheerful, until at last it began to think thus:

"All the other Tupilaks will certainly call this a shameful thing, that I should have killed the one who made me."

And it was now so troubled with shame at this that it swam far out into the open sea and was never seen again. And men say that it was because of shame it did so.

One day the old one said to Qujâvârssuk:

"You are named after a man who died of hunger at Amerdloq."

It is told of the people of Amerdloq that they catch nothing but turbot.

And Qujâvârssuk went to Amerdloq and lived there with an old man, and while he lived there, he made always the same catch as was his custom. At last the people of Amerdloq began to say to one another:

"This must be the first time there have been so many black seal here in our country; every time he goes hunting he catches two seal."

At last one of the big hunters went out hunting with him. They fixed the heads to their harpoons, and when they had come a little

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