How Things Came to Be: Inuit Stories of Creation
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How Things Came to Be: Inuit Stories of Creation
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Overview
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781772272598 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Inhabit Media |
| Publication date: | 09/17/2019 |
| Edition description: | English Edition |
| Pages: | 80 |
| Product dimensions: | 7.00(w) x 10.00(h) x 0.30(d) |
| Age Range: | 6 - 8 Years |
About the Author
Sean Qitsualik-Tinsley was born at the southernmost edge of Ontario, learning woodcraft from his father. He and his wife Rachel Qitsualik-Tinsley were brought together by a love of nature and each other. They write Arctic speculative fiction and nonfiction for various ages.
Emily Fiegenschuh attended art school at the Ringling College of Art and Design in Sarasota, FL, and graduated with honours and a BFA from the Illustration program. She has illustrated numerous Dungeons and Dragons rulebooks for Wizards of the Coast, and has contributed cover and interior illustrations to the novel series Knights of the Silver Dragon. She illustrated the ten-part fantasy story “The Star Shard” by Frederic S. Durbin for Cricket Magazine. Her art has also appeared in New York Times bestsellers A Practical Guide to Dragons and A Practical Guide to Monsters. Emily lives with her husband in the Seattle area.
Patricia Ann Lewis-MacDougall was born and raised in the Niagara Peninsula. Her childhood days were spent in the woodsy setting of Ontario’s Bruce Trail. After graduating high school, Patricia Ann enrolled at Sheridan College to study Animation in the 1980s and later illustration. She worked for several years as storyboard artist for Nelvana. She has illustrated several books for children.
Read an Excerpt
How Things Came to be
Inuit Stories of Creation
By Rachel Qitsualik-Tinsley, Sean Qitsualik-Tinsley, Neil Christopher, Louise Flaherty, Emily Fiegenschuh, Patricia Ann Lewis-MacDougall
Inhabit Media Inc.
Copyright © 2015 Rachel and Sean Qitsualik-TinsleyAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-927095-78-2
CHAPTER 1
When Things Came to Be
It was all so long ago. Where was time? It had not yet been dreamed up.
The Grand Sky people say that stone fell from the Sky. Soil, too. All the things of the Land.
Once stone and soil had fallen, babies came. They emerged from the Land like flowers. Life came from the Land. There was little difference between animals and humans. All were equal beings. Every creature could understand every other. They lived with each other. Learned from one another.
They were family.
There was life in those days, but no death. Nor was there light, until someone cried, "Light!"
Nor was there darkness, until someone cried, "Dark!"
The Sky hugged all of existence. Yet it was without a Sun. There was no Moon.
Today, if a plant springs up, there's a reason for that. If the wind blows, there's some cause behind it.
Yet the sensible things exist only because they're now willed to make sense. In the beginning, will was all that drove creation. What is will, but the dream of someone who is awake?
Will was the only force that gave sense to other things. And will was all that animals and humans really owned. The will behind living things was Strong, in those days. It was Stronger than the Sea. It was as Strong as the Sky.
Those first folk were so Strong that they could do anything. A thought, a wish, a sudden emotion: such things could change the Land.
They lost their powers over time, but every one of those early folk were like powerful shamans. For a while, their powers were like waking dreams. But, as in a dream, they were confused.
People stumbled about in a kind of twilight. They wondered who they were. What they should do. They grew quickly. They found children, new beings like themselves. Life was always rising from the Land. They raised the children. They imagined words to sing to them. They created toys and tools.
They built an entire world from their imagination.
Because they imagined themselves to be hungry, the people grew hungry. They wandered the Land, willing things to be as they went. There was nothing to eat but dirt. So that was what they swallowed.
It was an unpleasant life, because there were no limitations. The people understood growth. But not death. So they became older.
Then older still.
And very weary.
Some folk grew tired of walking. They lay down, refusing to be human anymore. They became hills, their ribs becoming rocky ridges.
One day, someone kicked at some mounds of dirt, and thought about all the stuff that had been created. Those folk who had not become hills had continued to wander. They had become attached to their things, and soon there was too much to carry.
People needed help. This person, kicking at the dirt, let the waking dreams move through him. The Strength of the Land shifted.
The person cried out a new word:
"Dogs!"
Mounds of dirt came to life, blowing sand in every direction. Howls rose on the wind. When the dust settled, there stood newly created dogs. Ready to help, they pulled the first sleds in that dreaming world.
With dogs, humans could move faster. They could spread out in every direction. They began to cover the entire Land.
Yet as they went, time passed.
People began to forget that they were one family with the animals. They came to believe that the animals were separate from themselves. That humans were special. They began to see the animals as little more than living clots of soil. Of dirt.
It was forgotten that the animal folk had risen, alongside humans, from the same Land.
In forgetting, a few humans began to see themselves as better than animals. Less and less did humans and animals enjoy each other's company. They dreamed of their own ways of life, as though they were different nations. They forgot how to speak to one another. And, today, only the very wise remember how to speak in the animal way.
It was not long before humans began to see differences between each other.
People learned how to say things like:
"I am important. And you are not."
"I deserve goodness. And you do not."
"I should have love. And you should not."
They were still powerful, in those days. But power and ignorance together made them dangerous. People continued to dream, and their dreams became real. Less and less did they find children, Strong beings like themselves, on the Land.
They used their Strength to divide themselves. At last, permanently, the people willed themselves to become two sorts of being. As male and female, they hoped to have children of their own.
So those early people dreamed and made families. And the families began to see differences between each other. There was pride. Envy. Anger. And with all those feelings, there came fear. The families spread out, away from each other.
They swelled in numbers.
Humans were growing more distant from the Land. They no longer ate soil. In order to eat, they hunted the furred and feathered folk. The animal folk did not like this. But they were no wiser than the humans. They had already come to eat each other.
Some wise animals remembered that the humans had been their family, long ago. Life had to feed on life. So the animals agreed that, if they were treated with respect, they would allow themselves to be hunted.
They would allow themselves to die, for a time, until their souls chose a new body. They would die to be reborn into a new form. Like a person changing clothes.
Yet if they were not treated well, the animal folk would withdraw into hidden places. Then, the humans would go hungry.
Under the power of dream, those old days were strange. Though the human beings sometimes went hungry, no one died. None had yet imagined death.
There came a day when a few people grew weary of the Land. They lay down, like their ancestors who had become hills. Their breath simply stopped.
When others found that they had died, they respectfully covered them under piles of stones. But the dead were not yet skilled at dying. Some changed their minds about being dead. They stood up and shrugged off the stones.
No one, in those times of power, knew how to stay dead.
Imagination could make them alive, or make them dead. But neither of these states meant anything. So, they dreamed especially forceful dreams.
Their wills reached up into the Sky.
After that, when they died, their life force became bright as flame. They burned with colours, like blossoms in spring. They learned, finally, how to leave their bodies behind. Their souls rose up like rainbow fire. They played together in the Sky.
Those people are still there, as the Aqsarniit — the northern lights that dance across the night Sky. They'll be there until they will themselves to live somewhere else. For no life can truly die.
So it was, in the Strong days. Since then, it is as though the Land has gone to sleep. The peoples of the world — humans and animal folk — have a new dream. They dream, now, that they have no Strength at all. But that's just as well.
Some Elders say that, in the long ago, the peoples of the Land were too powerful. They imagined storms that scoured the earth. They shook Land and Sea with their tantrums. Their dreams even produced great floods, which is why we find seashells at the very tops of mountains.
It was dreams that filled that early world with wonders. With dangers. Maybe that's why the humans and animals now will themselves to have less Strength. For what is power without wisdom?
For those who doubt, here follow a few deeds of those times. The tantrums. The strangeness. The foolishness.
And the wonder.
* * *
CHAPTER 2The Land's Babies
It has been said that, in those earliest days, when folk were Strong, they found babies on the Land. The days of Strong dreaming were very strange. Here's how the Land's babies appeared.
Just as strange powers were shared between animals, people, and the Land, so Inuit and Land were almost of one mind. In this way, the Land reacted to the good or evil that lay in each soul. No one understood it. No one could say what the Land was thinking (or if it really thought anything at all). But at odd times, it seemed to cast its favour on certain people.
Such favours, those of Grand Sky sometimes say, included the gift of babies. These were human children. They looked the same as any other person. They were Strong, like all beings from that time.
They simply did not emerge from any woman.
These babies were born of the Land itself. Somehow they were fashioned along the secret paths in the Land. The places where the world now hides its Strength from humans.
In those days, the Land's Strength was everywhere. It was not the sort of power that one had to seek out. Nor was it a craft that might be learned. It was part of the wisdom lacing the Big Everything together, at a time when all that is today hidden seemed clear and open.
Yet there was a lot of strangeness, too. It was as though the ways of things had not yet been set.
One such bit of strangeness (and an unwelcome sort) was that of women birthing no children. There was female. Male. But only rarely parents.
The Land itself, then, had to lend these poor women a hand. The Land gave rise to sons and daughters, babies that might be collected like so many eggs.
Maybe the Land created such babies out of pity. Maybe, by word or will or dream, the women themselves coaxed the Land into doing it. One way or another, it was the custom of those strange and ancient folk to search for their babies on the ground.
If a woman wanted a female child, she only had to search about at the edge of camp. There were many baby girls waiting to be found nearby. Males, however, were always found much farther out. Retrieving them was a bit of an annoyance. Males were only for those who didn't mind the trek.
Some unlucky few found no babies. That was very unfortunate. For, in those times, Inuit treasured children of any kind. All babies received the same affection and attention, no matter their origin.
There were still many wise people — Grand Sky folk — around at that time. They knew that real love had nothing to do with the source of one's birth.
As was said, there are not many Grand Sky folk about these days. The few there are speak only rarely about the Land's children. When such babies are spoken of, it's to point out how the original Inuit spread out across the Land so quickly. The Land's children, they say, explain how Inuit became so great in number.
It's not known (or at least not told by people of Grand Sky) how women came to birth children with the frequency that they do today. Nor is it known how or why the Land stopped giving them infants. But, if people today are descended from those powerful folk of long ago, then it's at least comforting to think about one basic fact.
Everyone has one ancestor in common.
The Land itself.
CHAPTER 3The Battle of Day and Night
It has been said that there were times before night and day. Few things moved the Land's Strength more surely than a song. But what if song battled against song? This was how night and day came to be.
There were days, though nearly forgotten, when the Land lay dark and heavy with power. That power was there for all beings to use. It was for good or evil. For beast or human.
There was too much power.
An idle word. An irresponsible thought. A wish. A dream. These could alter the world.
This force ran in the veins of the Fox. His fur was grey and his mind was keen. His great pleasure was to raid the places where Inuit had concealed their food. Such tasty treasures were hidden under rock piles. Though the world was a lightless place, it was no challenge for Fox to sniff things out. Under his blanket of shadow, Fox raided at will.
Life was indeed sweet.
Until the light came on.
One day, Fox was halfway into a pile of rocks, when there was a flash out of nowhere. He at first assumed that it was a torch, perhaps some approaching Inuit. He pulled his head from the rock ...
And was blinded.
Squinting, his eyes at last adjusting, he could see that the entire world had become lit up. He shuddered, feeling naked and exposed.
After his initial confusion came anger. His power rose like waves within him, so that he willed the light away. It obeyed, and went out like a torch tossed into water.
Then it went on again. Fox hissed at the brightness of it.
Tensing, the baffled Fox sent Strength pouring from himself, across the world, smothering the light with his will.
It went on again.
Fox let out a scream of frustration.
"Oh, so you're the one doing that!" called a voice from above.
Fox looked up to see Raven. His feathers were black as soot and he wheeled through the air overhead. Fox hissed again. He knew of the annoying bird. Said to be the most ancient of animal folk, it was rumoured that Raven might have created all others (though the bird himself had not bothered to remember how).
Fox had always questioned the wisdom of such a creature, a bird whose greatest power was to annoy others. Raven's feathers were said to have started out white. The bird had offended someone, who had tossed of soot at him. The blackness had been with Raven ever since.
Raven settled on a nearby rock, cocking his head to regard Fox through one pebble-like eye.
"If you say sorry," said Raven, "I'll forgive you. But stop mucking with my light."
Fox stood atop his rock pile, shaking with fury.
"So you're admitting it!" Fox seethed. "You're the one who keeps throwing this ugly glow over everything!"
Raven said, "I'm just trying to touch things up a bit."
"Well, it's not going to continue," spat Fox. "Do you think I want people to catch me stealing their food?"
"So your crimes are my problem?" Raven asked, turning his head to gauge Fox with the opposite eye. "I like eating, too, you know. And I miss half the things that fall dead around here, because it's so dim. Besides, don't you find it a bit ... depressing?"
But Fox, by now, was tired of feeling belittled by Raven. He again lashed out with his Strength. Raven's words trailed off into shadow.
The darkness, however, was brief.
Raven piped out his own words of power, his Strength spreading new light across the Land.
And so it went, with bird against beast against bird. Will and words began to flow and intertwine, like currents struggling over the course of a river.
It seemed, after a while, that the Strength was like a whirlpool between them. They battled by song.
Raven chanted:
"Light-light-light!
Let-it-be-day!
Light-light-light!"
Fox chanted:
"Dark-dark-dark!
Let-it-be-night!
Dark-dark-dark!"
At last, the two finally withdrew from each other.
As though by some silent agreement, each animal returned to his lonely ways. Each was exhausted, nearly broken in Strength.
And it is said, in the rumours of those times now beyond any creature's memory, that Raven's will was the greater of the two — though not by much. Through the Strength of his song, he overcame the ancient darkness.
So light was given permanence in the world.
Fox's power has left its mark, though. When light grows weary, and the Strength from Raven wavers, the world falls back into that darkness of old.
Then there is the dark of Winter.
Then comes the long night.
* * *
CHAPTER 4How Caribou Came to Be
As the power days passed, too many wrong things came to be. They came to be because of carelessness. Heartlessness. Greed. Ambition. But a few foolish deeds resulted in good things. This was how the caribou arrived.
Some events baffle even the folk of Grand Sky. The Land seems to enjoy its pranks on human beings. A deed comes along, from time to time, that seems at once wonderful and foolish. And born of a very simple, ordinary thing.
There was a particular camp.
One day, a strange young man settled in that camp. No one knew him. They had no idea where he had come from.
He never ate a thing. Nothing at all.
Yet eating nothing, in those times, was not quite as strange as it is today. To the camp, the important thing was that the stranger was wealthy. His clothes were odd, but beautiful. He came in on a sled drawn by many healthy dogs. He had arrived like a sudden blizzard, and been made welcome.
Soon, the stranger married one of the camp's young women. There was a great celebration. One more hunter — especially a skilled one — was always welcome.
Yet days passed, and the stranger never seemed to hunt. His wife began to complain. She had to beg for food from her relatives.
At first, the situation was scandalous.
After a while, it seemed criminal.
The other hunters of the camp confronted the stranger. They were not gentle. They tried to shame him into providing for his wife.
The young man seemed unmoved at first, until his face finally darkened. Wordless, he seized his great spear. Without a backward glance, he walked out of camp and into the hills.
Some, including the stranger's own wife, had grown to dislike him. A few even hoped that he would not return. Maybe, voices whispered, he was one of the hidden folk — the inhuman folk — whose comings and goings were along unseen paths in the Land.
Maybe camp life would be more peaceful without him.
The young man returned, however. He carried a bizarre animal carcass high on his shoulders. He threw the animal, a light-brown thing with head prongs that looked like gnarled driftwood, at his wife's feet. Pointing to the beast, he spoke a single word, calling it tuktu.
"Caribou."
(Continues...)
Excerpted from How Things Came to be by Rachel Qitsualik-Tinsley, Sean Qitsualik-Tinsley, Neil Christopher, Louise Flaherty, Emily Fiegenschuh, Patricia Ann Lewis-MacDougall. Copyright © 2015 Rachel and Sean Qitsualik-Tinsley. Excerpted by permission of Inhabit Media Inc..
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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Table of Contents
Contents
Introduction:,Grand Sky and the Strength of the Land,
1) When Things Came to Be,
2) The Land's Babies,
3) The Battle of Day and Night,
4) How Caribou Came to Be,
5) How the Sun and Moon Arose,
6) Feathers and Ice,
7) The Deep Mother,
8) The Storm Orphans,
9) The One Who Is Tied,
About Endings,
Glossary of Inuktitut Terms,