In a riverside village, a sister and her lazy young companion had a falling out over his behavior, leading her to leave via a celestial ladder. She became the sun, and he, pursuing her in vain, became the moon. Their eternal chase explains the waxing and waning of the moon, symbolizing its starvation and renewal as the sun feeds it in cycles.
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 offers an explanation for the origins of celestial bodies and their movements.
Origin of Things: The tale provides a narrative for natural phenomena, specifically the moon’s phases.
Transformation: Both characters undergo a metamorphosis into celestial entities, highlighting themes of change and adaptation.
► From the same Region or People
Learn more about Inuit peoples
from the Lower Yukon
In a village on the great river once lived four brothers and a sister. The sister had for a companion a small boy of whom she was very fond. This boy was lazy and could never be made to work. The other brothers were great hunters and in the fall hunted at sea, for they lived near the shore. As soon as the Bladder feast was over they went to the mountains and hunted reindeer. The boy never went with them, but stayed at home with the sister, and they amused each other. One night the sister awoke and found the boy lying in bed close to her, at which she became very angry and made him go to sleep in the kashim with the men. The next evening, when she carried food to her brothers in the kashim she gave none to the boy; instead, she went home, and after mixing some berries and deer fat, cut off one of her breasts, placed it in the dish, and carried it to the boy.
► Continue reading…
Putting the dish before him she said, “You wanted me last night, so I have given you my breast. If you desire me, eat it.” The boy refused the dish, so she took it up and went outside. As she went out she saw a ladder leading up into the sky, with a line hanging down by the side of it. Taking hold of the line, she ascended the ladder, going up into the sky. As she was going up her younger brother came out and saw her and at once ran back into the kashim, telling his brothers. They began at once to scold the boy and ran out to see for themselves.
The boy caught up his sealskin breeches and, being in such a hurry, thrust one leg into them and then drew a deerskin sock upon the other foot as he ran outside. There he saw the girl far away up in the sky and began at once to go up the ladder toward her, but she floated away, he following in turn.
The girl then became the sun and the boy became the moon, and ever since that time he pursues but never overtakes her. At night the sun sinks in the west and the moon is seen coming up in the east to go circling after, but always too late. The moon, being without food, wanes slowly away from starvation until it is quite lost from sight; then the sun reaches out and feeds it from the dish in which the girl had placed her breast. After the moon is fed and gradually brought to the full, it is then permitted to starve again, so producing the waxing and waning every month.
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Dreamtime Whispers 