_Eastern Eskimo_
_Ravens._—Raven used to be a man. Now in those days, people moved
about a great deal, hunting and fishing. One day a whole village was
preparing to move. They were collecting their blankets and cooking
boxes. Raven kept calling to someone that he had forgotten his
_kak_—forgotten the lower blanket of deerskin used for a bed. Raven
kept calling “Kak, kak, kak!” People said, “Get the kak yourself. Go
back for it yourself.” So Raven did, but he hurried so that he was
changed into a bird.
Raven still follows the camps. Even to this day when a camp is being
moved, Raven flies over it and shouts, “Kak, kak, kak!” because he
is afraid they will forget the blankets.
_Gulls._—Some people in a boat wanted to go around a long point of
land. Now the water was always rough at the point, and some of the
women were told to get out and cross the neck of land. One woman got
out with her children in order to lighten the load, but when she got
on shore, the noise of the water prevented her from hearing what the
boat people said. She wandered around the cliffs with her children,
crying over and over, the last word she heard, “Go over, goover,
over, ove, oh—”
_Hawks._—Once there was a woman whose neck was very, very short. All
the people in her village laughed at her. One day the woman went to
a very high place up on the rocks, and in the mountains. Then she
began to go there very often because she did not like people, so she
was changed into a hawk. Now, when she sees any one, she cries,
“Kea, kea, kea—who, who was it said ‘short neck’?”
_Swallows._—Once there were some small children, who were very wise.
They played a great deal on the edge of a high cliff near their
village, and their play was always building toy houses on the cliff.
One day when they were playing, they were changed into swallows.
Even to this day they come to the cliff near the Indian village and
build their houses in the side of the cliffs. They are very wise.
Even the raven does not molest them, and the Eskimo children like
much to watch these little swallows.
_Loons._—Once a man had two children, Raven and Loon. He wanted to
paint them so that they would look just alike, and he began with
Loon. First he painted Loon’s breast white, and then he painted
square spots on his back. When Raven saw how comical Loon looked, he
laughed so much that Loon became ashamed and ran away to a near-by
pond. Loon always faces a person so as to show his white breast and
hide the spots on his back. Raven refused to be painted in that way.
He ran away.
_Guillemots._—Some Eskimo children were very fond of playing on the
level top of a high cliff near their village, while the larger ones
watched them. Now this cliff overhung the sea and the sea was still
covered with ice. There was an icy strip near the shore, so that
even the seals could not approach. The wind was cold and the
children played hard to keep warm, shouting and calling to each
other. Just then the strip of ice along the shore broke away, and
the water was filled with seals. The men saw them, and ran for their
kayaks, and put them into the water to pursue the seals. The
children saw all this, and they shouted all the louder. The seals
were so frightened that they plunged into the water and were out of
sight.
The men were so angry that almost at once the cliff toppled over,
and the children slipped down with the fragments to the bottom. When
they reached the bottom, they had become sea pigeons with red feet.
They still live among the fragments of rock and earth at the foot of
the cliff.