YASHPEH
International Folktales Collection
Creation of the World |
The Eskimo of Siberia |
Tradition: Eskimo, Siberia, Inuit |
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The Raven and his wife created the world. They made the cape of Uñi´sak out of a nose of an eider-duck (Somatheria spectabilis); the peninsula of Alaska, of a long belt-knife; and the island Ima´lik (one of the Diomedes), of a button of the scabbard (with which it is clasped around the hip). They made reindeer of their hair, and dogs of their nails, and sea-water of their urine. |
Told by Ñịpe´wġi, an Asiatic Eskimo man, in the village of Uñi´sak, at Indian Point, May, 1901. This fragment seems to include material from two different sources, — one belonging to the Raven cycle, and probably borrowed from the Chukchee; the other referring to the creation of Uñi´sak and Alaska, undoubtedly Eskimo. |
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