There once was a girl who was waiting for the perfect husband. Her father eventually lost patience with her and told her she should marry his dog. As the family was going to sleep one night, a strange young man arrived and asked for shelter. During the night, he took the girl as his wife and she became pregnant by him. When the father found out that the girl was pregnant, he took her to a small island where he left her with his dog. From time to time, the dog would swim to the father's house and return with a package of food on his back which the girl's father had prepared. When her time came, the girl gave birth to several children, most of whom were of the dog form and some of whom were of the human form. Her father understood now that the strange man had been his own dog. He regretted the curse he had put on his daughter and resolved to get rid of the dog. The next time the dog came for provisions, he placed stones and sand in the package. When the dog tried to swim back to his family, he sank to the bottom of the sea. From then on, the father brought food to his daughter regularly.

When the girl learned what her father had done, she became very angry because the dog had been good to her. She ordered her dog children to tear up her father's kayak. The old man noticed what they were doing and managed to escape but he did not come back with food and soon the girl and her children had nothing to eat. The girl decided to send her children away. She laid the dog children in the sole of her boot and sent them out in the direction of the sea. It is said that the white people are descendants of these dog children. Then, she put her human children in her slipper and sent them drifting towards the land. It is said that the Indians are descendants of these human children.

The girl then returned to live with her father. One day, when her father was away hunting, a kayak approached and a good looking man with glasses invited her to come into his kayak. The girl decided to accept. After a while, the young man stepped out onto an ice floe and removed his glasses. The girl was surprised to see that the man's eyes were red and that he was very short. Only then did she realize that this man was a storm petrel in human form. It was too late and she had to resign herself to her fate. She lived with the bird-man in his little tent and had a child by him.

Meanwhile, the father had decided to look for his daughter once more. He finally found her and as the husband was out hunting, he promptly took her away. When the storm petrel noticed their boat from the sky, he flapped his wings so furiously that high waves threatened to upset the boat. The father pushed his daughter overboard so that the storm petrel couldn’t take her back. The girl clung to the boat and the father cut off the top joints of her fingers. As these fell into the sea, whales appeared. Still the girl hung on. The father cut off the next finger joints which turned into seals. Finally, the father cut off his daughter's hands which became walruses. The girl then slipped to the bottom of the sea where she became Takanaaluk Arnaaluk, the mother of all sea animals.

The father returned home but he felt such remorse that he wrapped himself in a skin and lay on the beach at low tide. When high tide came, it carried him out to sea. So it was that the father, the daughter and the dog were reunited at the bottom of the sea. The dog lies at the entrance of the house. The father lies on a bench wrapped in a skin and he is always in a bad mood. The daughter is the mother of all sea animals and she expects hunters to show great respect for the food they get from sea animals which were created out of her own hands.

< Back to Myths and legends