Yu.E. Berezkin, E.N. Duvakin

Thematic classification and distribution of folklore and mythological motifs by area

Analytical catalogue

Introduction
Bibliography
Ethnicities and habitats

L59A. Sticking to the whale. 40.74.

People who abuse a hero or his son are dragged into the sea, turning into a marine animal or part of his body or parasites on their skin.

Northern Alaska Inupiate, Igloolik, Eskimos of Baffin Land, Labrador, Polar, West Greenland, Yagans.

The Arctic. The mother or grandmother of a blind boy points his arrow; lies as if he did not kill the bear; does not give him meat; his sister hides meat for him; Loon puts him on his back, dives with him; he gains sight ; harpoons a whale; mother/grandmother grabs tench, dragged into the sea. Northern Alaska Inupiate: Frost 1971 [(the exact place in the publication is not a decree.); a woman is tired of her son hunting so many animals; she asks evil spirits to blind him; aims his arrow at a polar bear, lies that he missed, eats meat herself; her daughter (the little sister of a blind man) lays pieces for him, gives them to him when her mother takes her to hunt caribou; Gagara dives five times with him , he sees the light; his mother comes back, he rides her in a boat, throws her into the water; she grabs the side, he cuts off her fingers, she tries to catch her hair, he cuts them off; she turns black a whale, her severed hair in a whale's mouth]: 62-67; Lynch 1995 [a blind young man lives with his grandmother; she teaches him to trap Loon; Loon asks her to let her go because she has chicks; he lets go, the grandmother is angry; tells him to shoot at the polar bear, lies as if his grandson missed; tells him to eat berries and mushrooms; Loon immerses his kayak under water twice, the young man regains sight; throws his grandmother in water, it turns into a whale, her hair turns into a whalemustache; in gratitude, the young man puts a necklace of bone arrowheads around Loon's neck; now it's white feathers]: 21-26; Spencer, Carter 1954 (Cape Barrow) [=Spencer 1959:396-397; the grandmother of a blind boy points his arrow; lies that he didn't kill the bear; feeds him only rotten meat; Loon puts him on his back, dives four times with him; he gains sight; harpoons the white whale; ties the tench to the grandmother's hand, takes it to the sea; the killer whale devours the white whale; the hump on the back of the killer whale is an evil grandmother]: 68; igloolik: Kroeber 1899, No. 6 (Smith Sound) [The blind boy lived with his mother and sister; the mother pointed her son's bow at the bear, the arrow hit the beast, the mother said the boy missed; he smelled bear meat, mother denies that his sister is secretly feeding his brother; Loon tells the young man to sit on it, brings him to the rock, dives with him several times, he gains sight; the mother asks her son to harpoon the little narwhal; the first time he is like this and she does, she pulls the narwhal by the tench ashore; the second time he harpoons a big one, the narwhal drags the woman into the sea, she asks to throw her knife, the son does not throw it; she turns into a narwhal herself, her curled hair is in his fang; brother and sister are wandering, thirsty; sister enters the house, adlit in it, they eat her; brother killed them with a bone club (tusk), revived her sister from bones; they came to people, sister got married, brother got married]: 169-170; Rasmussen 1930a [grandmother; beluga whale drags her to sea; brother and sister come to people without anuses and genitals; brother marries, cuts through wife holes; she gets pregnant, her mother is about to cut her belly; she gives birth normally; all women make holes for themselves with meat forks; some die]: 77-80; Baffin's Land [The woman has an adopted son and daughter; the young man is blind; she tells him to shoot a bear, lies as if he missed, eats meat alone; his sister brings him pieces; Loon dives with him, making him sighted; he calls his mother hunt white whales, tells you to keep tench, takes her to sea, she screams, I swaddled you; turns into a narwhal; brother and sister travel; sister comes into the house to ask for water; inhabitants scratch it with their claws; brother kills them; brother and sister come to people without anuses; they chew food, spit out; sister marries alone; pregnant women cut their belly to extract the child; brother explains that the sister will give birth on her own; her son has an anus; people sit on stakes piercing themselves; some die, most successfully make their anuses]: Boas 1888:625-627; 1901-1907, No. 4:168-171; polar Eskimos [an old woman with her little grandson and granddaughter are left alone; a boy shoots a bear; a grandmother tells her granddaughter to tell him he missed, eats meat herself; his sister feeds him secretly; he asks take him to the lake; Loon dives with him four times, he sees the light; the young man harpoons the white whale, the tench drags his grandmother into the water, she turns into a narwhal, a bundle of her hair into his horn; his sister enters cannibal house, eaten; brother kills them, revives sister; brother and sister come to people without anuses; their bowel movements are deer fat, spew it through their mouths; urinate through a hole in the palm of their hand; sister goes out married here, pregnant; a shaman wants to give her a cesarean section as usual for these people; she normally gives birth to a girl who has an anus; her grandmother sits on a sharp stick to pierce her anus; dies]: Holtved 1951, No. 37:152-165 (translated into Menovshchikov 1985, No. 230:445-449); Labrador Eskimos [stingy mother; sister secretly feeds brother; mother turns into a white whale, her hood in a tail; in Beluga whales scream words, My son did it]: Nungak, Arima 1969:51; Labrador Eskimos, Greenland (text composed of 8 similar versions, 2 from Labrador, 6 from different districts of Greenland, 3 of which were recorded before 1828) [the widow has a son and daughter; the son kills a lahtak, the mother wants it for her needs, the son does not give it; the mother tells the tendons to spring when the son begins to tench them; a blow to the face makes the young man blind; the mother tells him to shoot at a bear that comes up, lies as if her son missed; his sister secretly feeds him bear meat; one day she takes him to the lake; there geese drop their geese in his eyes excrement, he sees the light; asks his mother to keep tench when hunting white whales; harpoons the biggest one, takes her mother into the water, she turns into a narwhal, a piece of her hair into a horn; brother and sister they go inland, live alone; the old brother visits people, then leaves forever]: Rink 1875, No. 2:99-105.

The Southern Cone. Yagans: Wilbert 1977, No. 54 [Milvago chimango is rejected by a girl, she and the rest of the people at the camp laugh at him; they bring him sausages not with guanaco blood, but with their own, extracted from his nose; this food withers away; two women told Hawk what they were feeding him; he asks them to paint it, returns to his parents' camp; on the way he makes fires; his mother does not believe at first that her son has finally returned; his shaman father dreams of a dead whale; pieces of whale meat eaten rush to the carcass, dragging people with him; people stick to the whale, which comes to life and swims away in sea; people become parasites on the whale's skin; only two women who felt sorry for the shaman's son are left on the shore], 55 [a son-in-law, a man married to two daughters, mimics him by in the morning, responding to "good morning" "crooked morning"; the youngest daughter informs her father; he dreams of a dead whale (or rather a big dolphin); the son-in-law finds a whale, brings home meat, it grows he has to leave some of the meat along the way; in the morning everyone goes to slaughter the whale; the shaman's little grandson climbs onto the carcass, his grandfather from inside the whale tells him not to cut deep, the boy is frightened and returns to shore; the rest, when they return to the camp, perform a ritual to celebrate the death of the shaman (they think he is dead); the whale meat they eat pulls them back, the shaman leaves the whale, he comes to life and swims away; the dorsal a whale (i.e. dolphin) fin is a son-in-law; the shaman's family ate for a long time the pieces of meat that his son-in-law left along the way]: 159-162, 163-165.