Sacred-Texts Native American Inuit
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100. ATUNGAK, A TALE FROM LABRADOR.—A man named Atungak had two wives. One of them having run away, he pursued her in his sledge, and soon overtook her. They then travelled together, and came to cannibals, whose chief invited them to his house, and set before them a dish of man's and wolves' brains mixed together. When they declined eating it, another was served consisting of the flesh of a child and of a walrus; and this also being rejected, they brought in dried reindeer-flesh, which they ate with hearty appetite. Meanwhile the people got hold of some children, and feigning to pet them they killed them and sucked out their brains. A young lad was also there who carried a sling wherewith to entangle strangers; but when he approached Atungak with this design he was struck on the head with a piece of pyrites-stone, and fell to the ground. Afterwards, when his mother came from another house to look for him she only found one of his legs left, lying under the bench, with the boot still on it, by means of which she recognised it. She then exclaimed, "Ye have done very ill in taking that miserable Ajajusek, who ought to have served his younger brother for food." Atungak and his wife travelling on, came to a country the people of which were all lame. Before they reached them the chief came to receive p. 448 them, and warned them against his people as being a very ill-natured set. Nevertheless, when Atungak's wife saw their ball-playing, she could not help laughing, and said that they hopped about like so many ravens. Atungak got very much afraid when he heard the bystanders repeating this. He at once cut asunder all the lashings of the sledges belonging to the lame people, so that they could not pursue them. Hastening from there they came to two black bears engaged in a fight, and no other way being left they were obliged to pass between them; after which they came to a pot boiling of itself, which they could not avoid crossing over. Lastly, they came to a man watching at the breathing-hole of a seal, and on speaking to him they recognised him as Atungak's son, whom they had left behind a child. They had travelled over the whole world without changing or getting old. In the north, caves and clefts in the rocks are still to be seen, in which they are said to have rested.
NOTE.—This story, and the next from East Greenland, being both imperfect fragments, received from the most widely severed Eskimo countries, will be found to contain some very curious similarities.