8. (The Giant.)

Sacred-Texts Asia
  

8. (The Giant.¹)

 Once there lived eight brothers. Seven of them paddled off in a skin boat. The eighth and youngest one staid at home. He went angling. Lo´lhịlịn, the big man, passed by, and caught him up. He said, "I will carry this home as a toy for my children." He carried him upon his palm, and tossed him over to his wife. "There, here is a toy for our children!" And at the same time it is a man. The children played with the living toy, and fed it with their food. So the man began to grow, attained their size, and became p. 171 a Lo´lhịlịn. The brothers landed, and looked around for him. They could not find him, and called out his name. Then he came, took them up, boat and all, and put all this high up on a cliff. Even now they are still there.

Told by I´rmị, a Maritime Chukchee man, at Mariinsky Post, October, 1900.

Footnotes

p. 170

¹ I obtained this tale in the Chukchee language from a man who from his early youth lived with the Eskimo just as much as with the Chukehee. He said that the tale is of Eskimo (Ai´wan) origin. It is difficult, however, to separate folk-lore originally Chukehee from that of Asiatic Eskimo provenience.