she died where she was at last--the old sneak!
THE SOUL THAT LIVED IN THE BODIES OF ALL BEASTS
There was a man whose name was Avovang. And of him it is said that
nothing could wound him. And he lived at Kangerdlugssuaq.
At that time of the year when it is good to be out, and the days do not
close with dark night, and all is nearing the great summer, Avovang's
brother stood one day on the ice near the breathing hole of a seal.
And as he stood there, a sledge came dashing up, and as it reached him,
the man who was in it said:
"There will come many sledges to kill your brother."
The brother now ran into the house to tell what he had heard. And
then he ran up a steep rocky slope and hid away.
The sledges drove up before the house, and Avovang went out to meet
them, but he took with him the skin of a dog's neck, which had been
used to wrap him in when he was a child. And when then the men fell
upon him, he simply placed that piece of skin on the ground and stood
on it, and all his enemies could not wound him with their weapons,
though they stabbed again and again.
At last he spoke, and said mockingly:
"All my body is now like a piece of knotty wood, with the scars of
the wounds you gave me, and yet you could not bring about my death."
And as they could not wound him with their stabbing, they dragged him
up to the top of a high cliff, thinking to cast him down. But each
time they caught hold of him to cast him down, he changed himself into
another man who was not their enemy. And at last they were forced to
drive away, without having done what they wished.
It is also told of Avovang, that he once desired to travel to the
south, and to the people who lived in the south, to buy wood. This
men were wont to do in the old days, but now it is no longer so.
And so they set off, many sledges together, going southward to buy
wood. And having done what they wished, they set out for home. On the
way, they had made a halt to look for the breathing holes of seal, and
while the men had been thus employed, the women had gone on. Avovang
had taken a wife on that journey, from among the people of the south.
And while the men stood there looking for seal holes, all of them felt
a great desire to possess Avovang's wife, and therefore they tried to
kill him. Qautaq stabbed him in the eyes, and the others caught hold
of him and sent him sliding down through a breathing hole into the sea.
When his wife saw
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