9. The Brothers held Captive on an Island.

The Eskimo of Siberia, by Waldemar Bogoras, [1913], at sacred-texts.com

9. The Brothers held Captive on an Island. ¹

   Two brothers were carried away by a gale, and came to an island in the ocean. The islanders captured them. The younger brother set off in search of the lost ones. He came to the island, and happened to overhear two old women who were talking about the event to take place the next morning. The two prisoners were to be sacrificed to the Sea-God. He killed one of the old women, skinned her, and put on her skin and her clothes. He also hid three long knives in one of the legs of her breeches.

   The Strong-Man of the village sent two men to bring the old woman to the place of sacrifice. They took her under their arms and brought her there. "Oh," said the Strong-Man, "how is it that your shoulders have come to be so broad?" — "Through my great desire to see the sacrifice." They placed the old woman between the two prisoners. Then they killed a slave as a peace-offering to the intended victims. But the old woman cut the thongs of the prisoners, and gave each a knife. Then the three killed all the people of the village. The three brothers went to another village, and the elder two married there. The youngest brother returned home, and found there his own son, who was now an old man, quite bent down, and walking with a staff. His father, however, was still quite young.

Told by Tal‘i´mak, an Asiatic Eskimo man, in the village of Uñi´sak, at Indian Point, May, 1901.

Footnotes

430:1 The narrator indicated that the island in question was the larger one of the Diomede Islands in Bering Strait.