ANIMAL STORIES FROM THE INUIT or Animal Stories from Eskimo-Land E-Book

Translated & Published by Renee Riggs

• Herausgeber: Abela Publishing
• Kategorie: Fantasy und Science-Fiction
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2020

Beschreibung

The 19 Eskimo, or Inuit, stories in this volume were collected by Dr Daniel Neuman in his travels across Alaska between 1910 and 1921, along with over 3,000 artefacts which now form the Neuman Collection in Juneau Alaska.
These stories were extracted from Dr Neuman’s collection, translated and published by Mrs Renee Riggs, wife of then Governor of Alaska Thomas Riggs.

More recently governments in Canada and Greenland have ceased using the term "Eskimo" in official documents. Instead, Canada has officially replaced the term "Eskimo" with "Inuit." In recognition of this change, the title of this book has been altered from “Animal Stories from Eskimo-Land” to “Animal Stories from the Land of the Inuit.”

These children’s stories are not like your typical Western fairy tale, with a princess in distress being rescued by a Knight in shining armour. Like most Native American children’s tales, these impart a lesson, or a wisdom, to teach Inuit children important life lessons while also being extremely entertaining. These 19 children’s stories are enhanced by 15 colourful headpieces and 7 full page colour plates.

The stories in this volume are:
The Journey to Eskimo Land
Ivango or the Lost Sister
The Robin, the Crow and the Fox
The Proud Mouse
The Crow and the Daylight
The Orphan Boy
A Race Between a Reindeer and a Tom-Cod
Why They Have Summer on St. Lawrence Island
The Lost Son
The Crow and the Owl
The Running Stick
The Treacherous Crow and His Cousin, the Mink
Good and Bad Weather
How the White Whales Happened
A Giant and His Drum
Lovek and Seranak
The Caribou
A Fox Story
Mi-e-rak-puk
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DANIEL NEUMAN was born in St. Petersburg, Russia in 1869. His grandfather, a physician, had first gone to Russia with Napoleon's army in 1812 but was wounded in battle. He recovered and remained in Russia to work for the Imperial Government Service.
An article containing a more complete biography of the remarkable man that Dr Daniel Neuman was, can be read or downloaded from: https://museums.alaska.gov/documents/concepts/06.pdf
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KEYWORDS/TAGS: Animal Stories from the Land of the Inuit, Tales, children’s stories, children’s books, color illustrations, Eskimo folktales, Eskimo folklore, Eskimo myths, Eskimo Legends, Dr Daniel Neuman, Renee Riggs, Journey to Eskimo Land, Inuit Land, Ivango, Lost Sister, Robin, Crow, Fox, Proud Mouse, Daylight, Orphan Boy, Race, Reindeer, Tom-Cod, fish, Summer, St. Lawrence Island, Lost Son, Crow and the Owl, Running Stick, Treacherous Crow, Cousin, Mink, Good weather, Bad Weather, White Whales Happened, Giant and His Drum, Lovek and Seranak, Caribou, Fox Story, Mi-e-rak-puk, who are you, boy, kaytak, nest, sun, shining, big snow house, good-morning, pour, black oil, bear, track, salmon, mercy, snap, mr. smart fox, caught, at last, Alaska, Canada, Inuit people,

Leseprobe

Animal Stories from the Land of the Inuit

Collected By

Dr. Daniel S. Neuman

&

Renée Coudert Riggs

With Illustrations And Decorations By

George W. Hood

Originally Published By

Frederick A. Stokes Company, New York

[1923]

Resurrected ByAbela Publishing, London[2020]

ANIMAL STORIES FROM THE INUITPreviously “Animal Stories From Eskimo-Land”

Typographical arrangement of this edition

© Abela Publishing 2020

This book may not be reproduced in its current format in any manner in any media, or transmitted by any means whatsoever, electronic, electrostatic, magnetic tape, or mechanical ( including photocopy, file or video recording, internet web sites, blogs, wikis, or any other information storage and retrieval system) except as permitted by law without the prior written permission of the publisher.

Abela Publishing,

London

United Kingdom

[2020]

ISBN-13: 978-8-XXXXXX-XX-X

email

[email protected]

website

www.AbelaPublishing.com

Dedication

With Affectionate Greeting

I Dedicate

this Small Volume

to

My Little Friends

The Children Of Alaska

Foreword

The Eskimos are a kindly, industrious, smiling people. To our way of thinking their lives are uncivilized and cheerless. And yet, in their own primitive way, they find much happiness in life. They live from one moment only to the next. When food is plentiful, they gorge. When seals and game are scarce, they patiently do without.

Eskimo children never cry. They are never punished by their parents, for the spirits which inhabit their little bodies might take offense and depart. They play happy games as do children the world over, with balls sewed together from reindeer or seal hides and with toys carved from ivory, bone or wood.

The people are courteous and considerate. I have sat in their kasgas when the oomaliks (head men) were in council with my husband, who at that time was Governor of Alaska. The dignity and order of their debates would honor any legislative assembly. There is no interruption to a speaker until the final I have spoken.

The council finished, comes the customary dance in the kasga. The dance is always symbolic—the coming of spring, the flight of the ducks, the spearing of the whale, the wolf dance, or the killing of the bear. The men dance with grotesque gesture until exhausted, while the women with quiet feet, sway gently in unison in the dim light from the opening overhead. On the platform at the end of the kasga the musicians beat industriously on their drums.

The stories in this little book are adapted from some of the great number gathered through many years by Dr. Daniel S. Neuman, of Nome. It was Dr. Neuman who painstakingly made the splendid and unequaled collection of Eskimo antiquities and modern implements now on exhibit in the territorial museum at Juneau. The acquiring of this collection for the Territory was one of my husband’s last official acts as governor.

I have endeavored to rewrite these tales for boys and girls in the hope that they may take an interest in that quaint people, living still in the stone age, who, on account of their contact with the so-called civilized races, are gradually vanishing into the past.

Renée Coudert Riggs.

Contents

Foreword

The Journey to Eskimo Land

Ivango or the Lost Sister

The Robin, the Crow and the Fox

The Proud Mouse

The Crow and the Daylight

The Orphan Boy

A Race Between a Reindeer and a Tom-Cod

Why They Have Summer on St. Lawrence Island

The Lost Son

The Crow and the Owl

The Running Stick

The Treacherous Crow and His Cousin, the Mink

Good and Bad Weather

How the White Whales Happened

A Giant and His Drum

Lovek and Seranak

The Caribou

A Fox Story

Mi-e-rak-puk

Illustrations

Who are you? said the boy

Looking up into the tree, saw Kaytak standing by his nest

At last he saw that it was shining from a big snow house

Stopped to say good-morning to the fish

Poured the black oil all over the crow

The bear came round by the same track and saw the salmon

Lovek, I have you at my mercy now

Snap, Mr. Smart Fox was caught at last

The Journey to Eskimo Land or the Journey to The Land of the Inuit People

The big easy-chair was drawn up before the fire, its hospitable arms extended, to embrace a father with a little boy on one knee and a little girl on the other. It was story-telling time.

Well, said Father, where shall we travel tonight?

The glowing embers showed two eager little faces. Take us to Eskimo Land! they said. So the father settled deeper down in the cosy chair and stretched out his long legs.

Very well, to Eskimo Land we shall go. I will take you inside a kasga and let the Eskimos tell you their own stories; but before we go there I must explain to you that in every Eskimo village there is one house called a kasga. Now this kasga is the place where they all go to pass the long, dark hours of winter, with song and story. Sometimes they dance to the weird music of beating drums and chanting voices, and again, they sit quietly mending their weapons, their fishnets or spears; or again, some of them will be carving beautiful pieces of ivory taken from a walrus tusk.

The house called kasga in which they meet is built by all the people of the village. Every one lends a hand; even the little children do their share of the work. There are logs of driftwood to be hauled: there is turf or moss from the tundra to be put over the round roof, and digging to be done with the big bone shovels. So they all help to build the place in which they spend so much of their time. The men gather there when they get home from hunting. They cannot be out long in winter. It is dark most of the day as well as the night, and the storms are so bad they do not dare to go very far away. The women bring their sewing too, which they do with thread made from dried sinews from the leg of the caribou or from the white whale which the old women patiently pull apart into long threads.

Now, said Father, shut your eyes tight and we will put on our invisible caps and go to Eskimo Land, right inside a kasga to see what is happening there this cold winter night.

So the little boy and girl shut their eyes and clung tightly to Father’s hand while he counted very slowly, One, two, three!

Stoop over, said Father, and creep on your hands and knees, for to get into the kasga we have to go through a long, low, tunnel-like entrance, until we come to a hole right over our heads. Here we are! I will give you a push. Jump up now! And they popped right through a hole into the middle of the floor of a big room. Isn’t that a funny way to get into a house? They were in the kasga at last.

There are no windows to this house, but a round hole in the middle of the ceiling, or roof, serves both as window and ventilator. This, in winter, is usually covered with a curtain of bear or seal intestine, which keeps out the cold. Also it keeps out the fresh air. Sometimes, when the room is very full of people, the warmth from their bodies and the steam from many breaths form a moisture that drops down upon them like rain.

The room is square, and about it runs a wide platform. This platform is about four feet from the ground. All the men sit on it, while the women sit on the floor at their feet, with the little children gathered about them. There are lots of little children in Eskimo Land. They are good little ones, too. Their parents love them dearly, but they have to learn early in life to be good and patient, for sometimes they get little or nothing to eat for days at a time, when game is scarce and their fathers come back from hunting without any meat for them. So these little ones do not fuss and cry, for they know that they cannot always have what they want when they want it.

There are no electric lights in Eskimo Land, nor do they have big open fireplaces in the houses, with bright, crackling logs to keep them warm, for wood is hard to get.

About the floor of the kasga are placed lamps of heavy stone, hollowed out like dishes, in which wicks of moss soaked in seal oil are burned. The lamps give a yellow, flickering light and a little heat. The women take care of the lamps, keep them clean and see that they do not smoke or go out.

On the middle of the platform, at the end of the room, sits the Ommalik of the village. Eskimos do not have real chiefs like Indians, but in every village there is a rich man; that is a man who has more than the others of what the Eskimos use and need the most. The Ommalik is like a chief for the time being, a sort of boss, so we will call him chief for convenience sake.

In the kasga we are in now there are two shelves high up, one at each end, where the unmarried men, the bachelors, sit; and quite a scramble they have, too, in getting up so high.

On the floor at the feet of their husbands sit the married women with their babies in their parka hoods and their children playing near them, but the little ones keep very quiet and never dare to make a noise when the grown-ups are talking—which would be a good example for lots of little white children I know.

Huddled up in a corner sat a very dark little man, with long black hair that hung down into his eyes. He was as close as he could get to one of the lamps, and in his hand he held a piece of creamy ivory, upon which he was carving the story of a walrus hunt, in pictures. Near him sat a man busily mending a spear. Ommalik looked around the room. Soon his eyes rested upon Ungukuk, the little man carving the picture story. Ungukuk, said Ommalik, will tell us a story.

The little dark man stopped his work, but did not move or look up. No one seemed to have heard the chief speak. Some of the little children still slept on with their heads against their mothers’ knees.

Again Ommalik looked about him and said, Ungukuk will tell us a story.

Again there was silence, and the boy in the far corner went on mending his fish net. At last, after five or six minutes had passed, Ungukuk raised his head and peered into the dark faces about him. In a monotonous, sing-song voice, he began the following story:

Ivango or the Lost Sister

Long ago, in a village in the Far North, there lived a young man named Ivango. He was the oldest of the family and had four brothers and a little sister, eleven or twelve years old.

One clear spring evening, the little girl was playing out on the sand pit with some other children. They were playing house, and on the beach near them was the huge skull of a whale.

When they had finished making a toy house out of pieces of driftwood, Ivango’s sister climbed to the top of the whale skull to rest.