© Susan Bouletsedna is a young inuit girl who grows past the age considered acceptable to marry - though many men desire to marry her, she simply doesn't accept any offers her father brings to her. one day fisherman dressed in the finest of furs (this is the arctic we're talking here - fine furs means wealth and prosperity) comes to speak to sedna's father. he is seeking a wife and heard that sedna was still not spoken for. even though sedna did not wish for the match, her father sends her off to be with the fine gentleman.
the man has travelled a great distance and takes sedna back in a small boat to his island. upon reaching the island, the man takes off his furs and reveals himself to be a bird dressed as a man. the island has no home other than a pile of twigs and piles of rocks for pillows. sedna is furious at the situation and quickly grows tired of eating the raw fish that he provides for food.
after a time, sedna's father begins to feel badly about how he forced his daughter away and decides to pay the bride and groom a visit. when he reaches the barren island he is shocked when sedna tells him that her husband is a bird rather than a man. sedna begs her father to bring her back home while the birdman is off fishing.
into the kyack they go. paddling furiously sedna and her father head for the mainland. birdman sees the escape and calls his bird family to come forth to stop his wife from leaving. an epic battle takes place on the water; an army of birds flapped their wings resulting in tidal waves and the birdman swooping down at sedna and her father. the waves knock sedna overboard and her father fears that his daughter will capsize the kyack - despite her plea to be pulled in from the freezing water her father decides to save himself instead. with sedna grasping the side of the kyack her father cuts off each of her fingers with his hunting knife. her fingers fall into the cold water and begin to transform into creatures that become the first whales, dophins and seals.
broken-hearted and enraged and unable to hang on any longer sedna falls into the cold water. recognizing her as their mother, the new creatures guide sedna slowly to the ocean floor. sedna leaves her life as a mortal inuit girl and becomes the mother of the ocean ruling the creatures that dwell in the sea.
because she was treated so poorly by her father and her husband, sedna developed a keen sense of fairness and balance. according to the myth, all anger and sadness and the misdeeds of people are washed away by water where they fall to the ocean bottom where they tangle in sedna's hair. lacking fingers of her own, she is unable to comb clean her hair.
when her hair is tangled she rages at the folly of mankind and tells her children (the whales and the seals) to keep away from the hunters. when the poor fishing continues for sometime, the hunters send their most powerful shaman on a vision-quest to the ocean floor where he approaches the goddess and begins to untangle her hair and comb out the seaweed with his fingers. she is thankful that the shaman combs her hair and when he leaves she tells her children to allow themselves to be hunted once more.
[music | david usher, "surfacing"]
4 comments:
This is a wonderful legend and new to me. i've read some tribal folk lore but not that familiar with the eskimo tribes.
It has always amazed me how these tribes braved the frigid arctic sea with there little boats and simple tools to hunt such powerful animals.
imajica - lol! :-) as my father once said (to my sister) "i worry about jodi - i think she's too independent". he was talking about marriage and such. if only he had said the comments to me - i would of been able to thank him for raising me to be a confident and strong and independent woman! (a miracle for him, considering he's quite the albertan redneck!)
johnnny newt - i was always drawn to the people of the arctic and the more i read of their stories, the more i feel grateful for that pull. (that and the fact that when i was born i was called 'eskimo baby' due to my dark hair and dark almond eyes. my parents are scots/irish and austrian - i'm a throwback to something else!)
Boy I'd say, I would of definitly geussed you to be partial native or maybe asian ! I don't think Scots irish and Ausie would of even been an option. I had a friend growing up who's mother came from a long line of Appalachian french irish, all red heads and green eyes and such but she looked about as Cherokee as anyone i've ver seen. strange how that comes around.
mr. newt - you should be with me when i'm travelling... nearly everywhere i go i get asked by the locals if i am either from there or if one of my parents is... it's happened in costa rica, egypt and greece. i think i may have missed my true calling - international spy! ;-)
currently i'm reading a historical account/biography of ghengis khan and the spread of the mongol empire - and now i'm hoping i'm a throwback to the mongols!
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