Native American Legends
Sun Sister and Moon Brother
An Eskimo Legend
Sedna is known as the Mother of Sea Beasts. Once she was a human
girl, but now she is a goddess who lives at the bottom of the sea.
This is how it happened.
In olden times a brother and his sister lived in a large village
in which there was a singing house, and every night the sister with
her playfellows enjoyed themselves in this house.
Once upon a time, when all the lamps in the singing house were
extinguished, somebody came in and outraged her. She was unable
to recognize him; but she blackened her hands with soot and when
the same again happened besmeared the man's back with it. When the
lamps were relighted she saw that the violator was her brother.
In great anger she sharpened a knife and cut off her breasts, which
she offered to him, saying: "Since you seem to relish me, eat
this." Her brother fell into a passion and she fled from him,
running about the room. She seized a piece of wood (with which the
lamps are kept in order) which was burning brightly and rushed out
of the house.
The brother took another one, but in his pursuit he fell down and
extinguished his light, which continued to glow only faintly. Gradually
both were lifted up and continued their course in the sky, the sister
being transformed into the sun, the brother into the moon. Whenever
the new moon first appears she sings:
Aningaga tapika, takirn tapika qaumidjatedlirpoq; qaumatitaudle.
Aningaga tapika, tikipoq tapika.
(My brother up there, the moon up there begins to shine; he will
be bright. My brother up there, he is coming up there).
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