This is a splendid presentation of an ancient northern story cycle, brought to life by Lela Kiana Oman, who has been retelling and writing the legends of the Inupiat of the Kobuk Valley, Alaska, nearly all her adult life. In the mid-1940s, she heard these tales from storytellers passing through the mining town of Candle, and translated them from Inupiaq into English. Now, after fifty years, they illuminate one of the world's most vibrant mythologies. The hero is Qayaq, and the cycle traces his wanderings by kayak and on foot along four rivers - the Selawik, the Kobuk, the Noatak and the Yukon - up along the Arctic Ocean to Barrow, over to Herschel Island in Canada, and south to a Tlingit Indian village. Along the way he battles with jealous fathers-in-law and other powerful adversaries; discovers cultural implements (the copper-headed spear and the birchbark canoe); transforms himself into animals, birds and fish, and meets animals who appear to be human.
Authors
- Control Number Identifier
- CaOOCEL
- Dewey Decimal Classification Number
- 398.22/089971
- Dewey Decimal Edition Number
- 20
- General Note
- Co-published by Carleton University Art Gallery Issued as part of the desLibris books collection
- Geographic Area Code
- n-us-ak
- ISBN
- 9780773573987 0886292670
- LCCN
- E99.E7
- LCCN Item number
- O424 1995eb
- Modifying agency
- CaBNVSL
- Original cataloging agency
- CaOONL
- Physical Description | Extent
- 1 electronic text (xx, 119 p.)
- Published in
- Canada
- Publisher or Distributor Number
- CaOOCEL
- Rights
- Access restricted to authorized users and institutions
- System Control Number
- (CaBNVSL)slc00207834 (OCoLC)243600962 (CaOOCEL)407499
- System Details Note
- Mode of access: World Wide Web
- Transcribing agency
- CaOONL
Table of Contents
- Contents 6
- Preface 8
- Introduction 14
- Preamble: Where the Eskimo Came From 24
- The Epic of Qayaq: The Longest Story Ever told By My People 26
- Qayaq's Life with his Parents 28
- Qayaq Associates with Birds and Animals and a Man who Transforms into an Animal 32
- Qayaq Visits the Umialik's Village. The Influence of Ancestors Is Particularly Stressed 41
- The Story of the Big Flood as it Was Told by Qayaq's Wife 47
- From Another Storyteller: How a Young Orphan Boy Grew Up to Be the Umialik whose Daughter Became Qayaq's Wife 68
- Qayaq Receives the Uplifting Influence of Ptarmigans and Caribou 89
- Qayaq Visits Two Communities, One in Alaska and One in Canada 95
- Qayaq Goes to a Western Community at the Mouth of the Yukon River and a Tlingit Village to the Southeast 134
- Qayaq Visits the Headwaters of the Selawik River and Eventually Finds his Way Home 138
- List of Plates 144
