The Birth of the Whale

Inuit Myth

Sedna was a very beautiful Eskimo girl who lived with her widowed father beside the sea; she was courted by many young men from many different clans but always refused to marry.

One day from a distant shore came a handsome hunter, he carried an ivory spear and dressed in splendid furs, he arrived on his kayak, but instead of coming ashore he stayed on his canoe rocking among the waves, calling out to Sedna with seductive songs:

Follow me into the land of birds, where there is never any hunger. You shall rest on my skins, your pot with always have meat, your lamp with oil filled, you will wear ivory necklaces and my land will be your land…”

Sedna at first refused, tough intrigued, she was still timid and confused. But the stranger’s attractive words, little by little, down to the sea drew her. He enticed her onto his canoe and swiftly sailed away.

The handsome stranger deeply and sincerely loved her, but Sedna felt disgust and then despair, spent her days in grief and tears when she discovered her seducer was not a man but a Kokksaut,* the phantom of a bird, a bird-spirit capable of assuming the shape of other birds, or at will transform himself into a human being.

Sedna’s father too was inconsolable for the loss of Sedna, so one day he set out in search of the distant shore his daughter had been taken to. The bird spirit was away when he found it, he saw his grieving girl, he took her in his arms, he carried her to the boat to set sail for their native land.

When the Kokksaut returned he looked for his beloved wife, but couldn’t find her, mysterious cries carried by the wind told him Sedna and her father had fled with lamentations and cries of anger.

In his handsome phantom form he entered his kayak in pursuit and soon caught up with the fugitive canoe. On the get-away canoe Sedna’s father recognized the phantom and chose to hide his daughter underneath some furs, Kokksaut pleaded for his wife: “Let me see Sedna, I beg you, let me see her.”

But with anger the father firmly refused the phantom’s plea. Wild with despair, the phantom-hunter fell back. He had failed.

With a furious beat of wings he then changed back into a bird, spread his wings and soared, soared over the fugitives uttering the strange cry of the loon and disappeared into the darkness of a sudden Artic ocean storm sweeping across the sea.

Wild winds raged, billowing waves clamoured, demanded the sacrifice of Sedna, Sedna’s father smitten by horror, dismay and dread of having offended the powers of heaven and earth, out of his mind and with fear of the man-bird gripping his heart he seized his daughter and hurled her from the canoe to appease the offended sea.

Three times above the waves Sedna’s face appeared, her hands desperately clutching the side of the boat, while in wild panic and shock the father with a great ivory axe chopped her fingers off, as she battled in turbulent waves, her chopped fingers transformed into seals.

Again and again she tried to escape death and trice the father mutilated her wounded hands. The second knuckles gave birth to the ojuk, the deep-sea seals, the third became walruses and from the remainder, the whales were born.

Nothing saved Sedna from the fury of the ocean, she perished to complete the sacrifice that returned calm to the raging sea.

Note:
Kokksaut: Inuit word for strange creature