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As to the rest of what we know about THE TRADITIONS OF
THE WESTERN TRIBES an article by John Murdoch in the «American
Naturalist» (July 1886) under the title of «a few legendary
fragments from Point Barrow», must be greeted as the first attempt
to procure the materials hardly to be dispensed with by the student
of American archæology. The fragments treat of: (1) How people
have their origin from a dog as one of their remote progenitors.
The Eastern Eskimo refer this descent not to their own race
but to that of the Indians and Europeans as children of the
same couple. As for the question about the first intercourse
with these races it will be interesting to know how far from Point
Barrow this divergeance of evidently the same ideas begins. —
(2) Another account of the origin of human beings; this seems
not to be known before. — (3) The origin of reindeer and fish;
the first part of this is new, the other is also known in
Greenland. — (4) Thunder and lightening. The Greenland version
of this, mentioned by Crantz and Egede, is already almost sunk
in oblivion, but I believe that a similar one is still popular in
Baffin’s Land. — (5) The story of Kokpausina. The authors
suggestions with regard to a relationship between this story and
some Greenland tales are quite correct, we recognise 3 or 4
of its principal elements in the latter. — (6) A murder at Cape
Smith, and (7) the people who talked like dogs, are said to be
of more recent origin. — (8) The «house-country». The author’s
hints at its resemblance to the mysterious Akilinek of the
Greenlanders and his added remarks on fabulous men and animals all
perfectly agree with what I have been able to infer from the
Greenland folklore.
According to A. Pinart, the Eskimo of Kadjak were at one
time for a certain period subdued by the Koliushes and adopted
some of their religious ideas. This gave rise to a sort of
MIXED MYTHOLOGY, speaking of 5 heavens which the human
soul had to pass after death before the real death took place,
and they invoked the Eskimo «hlam choua» (Greenland: silap
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