The Norton Sound Eskimo tell of an ancient flood that submerged the earth, sparing only a high mountain. Some animals survived by climbing its slopes, while a few humans lived in an umiak, relying on fish until the waters receded. As the floodwaters shaped the land into mountains and valleys, survivors descended, repopulating the earth. Similar legends exist among other Bering Sea Eskimo groups.
Source:
The Eskimo about Bering Strait
by Edward William Nelson
[Smithsonian Institution]
Bureau of American Ethnology
Eighteenth Annual Report
Washington, 1900
► Themes of the story
Creation: It explains how the current world, with its mountains and valleys, came into being after a great flood.
Origin of Things: The story provides an explanation for natural phenomena, specifically the formation of the earth’s topography.
Loss and Renewal: It depicts a cycle of destruction through the flood and subsequent rebirth as survivors repopulate the earth.
► From the same Region or People
Learn more about Inuit peoples
Legends very similar to this are widely spread among other Eskimo on the coast of Bering sea.
The Norton sound Eskimo have a legend that in the first days the earth was flooded except a very high mountain in the middle. The water came up from the sea and covered all the land except the top of this mountain; only a few animals were saved, which escaped by going up the mountain side. A few people escaped by going into an umiak and subsisting on the fish they caught until the water subsided.
Finally, as the waters lowered, the people who were saved went to live upon the mountains, eventually descending to the coast; the animals also came down and replenished the earth with their kind. During the flood the waves and currents cut the surface of the land into hollows and ridges, and then, as the water receded, it ran back into the sea, leaving the mountains and valleys as they are today.
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Dreamtime Whispers 