The Eskimos trace to their fellow-countrymen the origin of almost everything in external nature. It was an old man hewing chips from a tree that brought into being the fishes and other marine animals. He rubbed the chips between his legs ('sudore testiculorum') and threw them into the water, upon which they turned into fishes. The Greenland shark, however, is of different origin: 'One day a woman was washing her hair in urine. A gust of wind carried away the cloth with which she was drying her hair, and it became a shark; wherefore the flesh of this fish still smells of urine.'[1]
The heavenly bodies were once ordinary Eskimos, living upon the earth, who, for one reason or another, have been translated to the skies. The sun was a fair woman, and the moon her brother, and they lived in the same house. She was visited every night by a man, but could not tell who it was. In order to find out, she blackened her hands with lamp-soot, and rubbed them upon his back. When the morning came, it turned out to be her brother, for his white reindeer-skin was all smudged; and
- ↑ Hans Egede, Grönlands Perlustration, p. 117; P. Egede, Continuation af Relationerne, pp. 20, 60. As to washing in urine (see p. 29), I may remark that it seems to have been a custom of untold antiquity. We find allusions to it even in the sacred writings of the Parsees. Thus it is said (Vendidad, 8, 13) that corpse-bearers shall wash themselves with urine 'not of men or women, but of small animals or beasts of draught.'
