The Project Gutenberg EBook of Eskimo Folktales, by Unknown

This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or
re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net

Title: Eskimo Folktales

Author: Unknown

Editor: Knud Rasmussen

Translator: W. Worster

Release Date: May 23, 2009 [EBook #28932]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ESKIMO FOLKTALES ***

Produced by the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at
http://www.pgdp.net/ (This file was produced from images
generously made available by The Internet Archive/American
Libraries.)

Eskimo Folk-Tales

Collected by

Knud Rasmussen

Edited and rendered into English by

W. Worster

With illustrations by native Eskimo artists

Gyldendal
11 Burleigh St., Covent Garden, London, W.C. 2
Copenhagen Christiania
1921

INTRODUCTION

These stories were collected in various parts of Greenland, taken
down from the lips of the Eskimo story-tellers themselves, by Knud
Rasmussen, the Danish explorer.

No man is better qualified to tell the story of Greenland, or the
stories of its people. Knud Rasmussen is himself partly of Eskimo
origin; his childhood was spent in Greenland, and to Greenland he
returned again and again, studying, exploring, crossing the desert
of the inland ice, making unique collections of material, tangible
and otherwise, from all parts of that vast and little-known land,
and his achievements on these various expeditions have gained for
him much honour and the appreciation of many learned societies.

But it is as an interpreter of native life, of the ways and customs
of the Eskimos, that he has done his greatest work. "Kununguaq"--that
is his native name--is known throughout the country and possesses the
confidence of the natives to a superlative degree, forming himself,
as it were, a link between them and the rest of the world. Such
work, as regards its hither side, must naturally consist to a great
extent of scientific treatises, collections o