A group of people lived peacefully until a Kamak and his wife demanded blubber, consuming it daily and threatening to eat the villagers once it ran out. The villagers fled to the sky via an arrow-formed road. The Kamaks searched for them, using divination and crude methods, but their plans backfired hilariously and fatally. The villagers later returned, rid the area of the Kamaks, and lived happily without fear of spirits.
Source
Koryak Texts
by Waldemar Bogoras
American Ethnological Society
Publications, Volume V
(edited by Franz Boas)
E. J. Brill – Leyden, 1917
► Themes of the story
Conflict with Authority: The villagers face oppression from the Kamak and his wife, who demand resources and threaten their lives.
Cunning and Deception: The villagers cleverly escape by creating an arrow-formed road to the sky, outsmarting the Kamak and his wife.
Divine Punishment: The Kamak and his wife meet a fatal end due to their own misguided actions, suggesting a form of cosmic justice.
► From the same Region or People
Learn more about the Koryak people
Collected in the village of Kamenskoye, on Penshina Bay, with the help of Nicholas Vilkhin, a half-Russianized Koryak, Decmber 1900 – April, 1901.
Some people lived in a certain place. One day a kamak and his wife looked down (through the entrance-hole). They said, “Halloo! have you not some blubber?” – “There is some in the cache.” They entered the cache, and began to eat blubber. Then they sang, “It tastes well. We are eating blubber.” The next morning it was the same. “Halloo! have you not some blubber?” – “There is some in the porch.” – “It tastes well. We are eating blubber; but when you have no more blubber, tomorrow we shall eat you.”
They fled upwards in the night-time. They threw an arrow (upwards), and it became a road. They fled along this road.
Those came again. “Halloo! have you not some blubber?” But there was no answer. “Let us jump in! They are hidden somewhere.” They entered, and searched in all the corners. There was nothing.
► Continue reading…
They said, “Let us try the divining-stone!” [Literally “let us act with the grandmother”. “Grandmother” is used also for “divining-stone”. The reason is probably that divination with stones is chiefly practised by women, and that the divining-stone, though usually a round pebble or a piece of bone ornamented with beads and tassels, represents a female guardian of the family.] (The kamak-woman) made (her husband) stand with his legs apart. She used his penis as a divining-stone. “If they have fled to the morning dawn, we shall follow them. If they have fled to the sunset, we shall follow them. To the seaside also we shall follow them. If they have fled upwards, what then? God would not treat us very pleasantly. How can we follow them?”
He began to sway his penis. “Shall we go out through the same opening without any fear [without shame]. Let us go out through the vent-hole in the roof of the porch!” The kamak-woman said, “Take me on your shoulders!” He took her on his back. “Oh, you are strangling me!” (His head) thrust itself into her anus. “Oh, you are playing mischief!”
Finally they both died, and lay there. His head slipped into her anus. After a while (the fugitives) said, “Let us visit the house!” They visited it, and dragged out his head with an iron hook, and his head had become (quite) hairless.
“Oh, oh?” They threw them into the direction of the sunset. Then they lived and were happy. They were not harmed by spirits.
That is all.
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Dreamtime Whispers 