There exists another tradition in regard to the spirit of the moon,
which is also known to the Greenlanders. While in the first tradition
the moon is a man carrying a glowing light, in the other she is the moon
man’s house (Rink, p. 440). The legend, as told by the Oqomiut and
Akudnirmiut, is the narrative of the flight of an angakoq to the moon
and is as follows:
A mighty angakoq, who had a bear for his tornaq, resolved to pay a visit
to the moon. He sat down in the rear of his hut, turning his back toward
the lamps, which had been extinguished. He had his hands tied up and a
thong fastened around his knees and neck. Then he summoned his tornaq,
which carried him rapidly through the air and brought him to the moon.
He observed that the moon was a house, nicely covered with white
deerskins, which the man in the moon used to dry near it. On each side
of the entrance was the upper portion of the body of an enormous walrus,
which threatened to tear in pieces the bold intruder. Though it was
dangerous to pass by the fierce animals, the angakoq, by help of his
tornaq, succeeded in entering the house.
In the passage he saw the only dog of the man of the moon, which is
called Tirie´tiang and is dappled white and red. On entering the main
room he perceived, to the left, a small additional building, in which a
beautiful woman, the sun, sat before her lamp. As soon as she saw the
angakoq entering she blew her fire, behind the blaze of which she hid
herself. The man in the moon came to meet him kindly, stepping from the
seat on the ledge and bidding the stranger welcome. Behind the lamps
great heaps of venison and seal meat were piled up, but the man of the
moon did not yet offer him anything. He said: “My wife, Ululiernang,
will soon enter and we will perform a dance. Mind that you do not laugh,
else she will slit open your belly with her knife, take out your
intestines, and give them to my ermine which lives in yon little house
outside.”
Before long a woman entered carrying an oblong vessel in which her ulo
(see p. 518) lay. She put it on the floor and stooped forward, turning
the vessel like a whirligig. Then she commenced dancing, and when she
turned her back toward the angakoq it was made manifest that she was
hollow. She had no back, backbone, or entrails, but only lungs and
heart.
The man joined her dance and their attitudes and grimaces looked so
funny that the angakoq could scarcely keep from laughing. But just
at the right moment he called to mind the warnings of the man in
the moon and rushed out of the house. The man cried after him,
“Uqsureliktaleqdjuin” (“Provide yourself with your large white bear
tornaq”).[7] Thus he escaped unhurt.
[Footnote 7: Uqsurelik, with blubber, signifies in the language of
the angakut the white bear; lauk, large; -leqdjorpoq, he provides
himself with.]
Upon another visit he succeeded in mastering his inclination to laugh
and was hospitably received by the man after the performance was
finished. He showed him all around the house and let him look into a
small additional building near the entrance. There he saw large herds of
deer apparently roaming over vast plains, and the man of the moon
allowed him to choose one animal, which fell immediately through a hole
upon the earth. In another building he saw a profusion of seals swimming
in an ocean and was allowed to pick out one of these also. At last the
man in the moon sent him away, when his tornaq carried him back to his
hut as quickly as he had left it.
During his visit to the moon his body had lain motionless and soulless,
but now it revived. The thongs with which his hands had been fastened
had fallen down, though they had been tied in firm knots. The angakoq
felt almost exhausted, and when the lamps were relighted he related to
the eagerly listening men his adventures during his flight to the moon.
It is related in the course of this tradition that the man in the moon
has a qaumat, some kind of light or fire, but I could not reach a
satisfactory understanding of the meaning of this word. It is derived
from qauq (daylight) and is used in Greenland for the moon herself.
Among the Eskimo of Baffin Land it is only employed in the angakoq
language, in which the moon is called qaumavun, the sun qaumativun.
Another name of the moon is aninga (her brother), in reference to the
first legend. The natives also believe that the man in the moon makes
the snow. He is generally considered a protector of orphans and of the
poor, and sometimes descends from his house on a sledge drawn by his
dog, Tirie´tiang, in order to help them (see the tradition of
Qaudjaqdjuq, p. 630).