together. And they ate and
were satisfied. And then each man began telling of his day's hunting.
At last Saunikoq said:
"To-day, when I struck a walrus, I did not think at all that it
should cause me to lose my bladder float. Where that came up again
is a thing we do not know. That bladder float of mine was lost."
And when Saunikoq had said this, Tungujuluk took that bladder and
line and laid them beside the meat dish, and said:
"Whose can this bladder be, now, I wonder? Aha, at last I have paid
you for the time when you came in the shape of a bear, and mocked us."
And when these words were said, the many who sat there laughed
greatly. But Saunikoq got up and went away. And then next morning
very early, he set out and rowed northward in his umiak. And since
then he has not been seen.
So great a shame did he feel.
ANARTEQ
There was once an old man, and he had only one son, and that son
was called Anarteq. But he had many daughters. They were very fond
of going out reindeer hunting to the eastward of their own place,
in a fjord. And when they came right into the base of the fjord,
Anarteq would let his sisters go up the hillside to drive the reindeer,
and when they drove them so, those beasts came out into a big lake,
where Anarteq could row out in his kayak and kill them all.
Thus in a few days they had their umiak filled with meat, and could
go home again.
One day when they were out reindeer hunting, as was their custom,
and the reindeer had swum out, and Anarteq was striking them down,
he saw a calf, and he caught hold of it by the tail and began to
play with it. But suddenly the reindeer heaved up its body above
the surface of the water, and kicked at the kayak so that it turned
over. He tried to get up, but could not, because the kayak was full
of water. And at last he crawled out of it.
The women looked at him from the shore, but they could not get out
to help him, and at last they heard him say:
"Now the salmon are beginning to eat my belly."
And very slowly he went to the bottom.
Now when Anarteq woke again to his senses, he had become a salmon.
But his father was obliged to go back alone, and from that time,
having no son, he must go out hunting as if he had been a young
man. And he never again rowed up to those reindeer grounds where they
had hunted before.
And now that Anarteq had thus become a salmon, he went with the others,
in the spring, when the rivers break
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