Uinigumasuittuq (Sedna): the Inuit Myth of the living beings’ origin
The origin of the living beings is one of the most popular Inuit myths in the Arctic as well in non Inuit territories. It is about the story of Uinigumasuittuq ” the one who did not want to get married “, so called Takannakaaluk ” the Big there below “; more known by Qallunaat as Sedna. The artists often represent her under the shape of a siren. Various versions of the myth exist, according to the Arctic areas. Here is a version of the story told by an elder from Iglulik in Nunavut :
Unigumasuittuq lived with her parents and their dog Siarnaq. She refused all the pretenders. One day however, she bestowed the favours on a seductive visitor. He was their transformed dog who nobody had recognized. He often returned and she became pregnant. The father discovered then the identity of his host and furious, he transported the couple on an island.
As they went hungry, the girl sent several times the dog to look for some meat by her father. The dog used to bring back the food in a bag placed on his back. Then one day, the father was so furious of having puppies for grandchildren that he placed rocks into the bag thus, provoking the dog drowning. On the advice of their mother, puppies tore their grandfather’s kayak when he came himself to bring food to them.
Henceforth without food, Uinigumasuittuq sent its puppies far off to allow them to survive. She made a first group leave southward to the wide on an old sole of boot: they disappeared in the mist and became Qallunaat (White people). She sent another group southward inside lands, provide with bows and with arrows: they became the Amerindians. Then she decided that the last group of puppies would leave less far, in the North but that they should not be seen by Inuit people: those were transformed into Ijirait, invisible beings living on caribous.
After the dispersal of those who were at the origin of the human races, Uinigumasuittuq returned then with her father. She continued to repel the pretenders until the day when arrived a man who wore sealskin clothes and sunglasses. She found him so beautiful that she agreed to marry him. She discovered too late that he was a petrel disguised as human.
So she ran away in a kayak, helped by her father. Discovering their escape but not succeeding in catching up them, the bird provoked a terrible storm. The terrified father threw his daughter to the water and as she caught the edges of the boat, he cut her fingers and burst her eyes with his knife. Every split phalanx was transformed into marine mammal: ringed seals, bearded seals and beluga whales appeared then. The woman disappeared under the water and lived there henceforth.
And so she became for ever Takannaaluk, ” the Big there below “. Deprived of the fingers, she was henceforth incapable to do hair thus, getting tangled. Every time knots formed, marine mammals remained captive as in fishnets there. When it occurred, Inuit got hungry because no more game could be captured. The shaman then had to come down at the bottom of the sea to untangle Takannaaluk’s hair and release marine mammals. Inuit could hunt then again the game.
Source :
Knud Rasmussen, 1929, «Intellectual Culture of the Iglulik Eskimos», in Report of the Fifth Thule Expedition, VII(1), Copenhagen.
