The story of Sedna, the sea goddess

   Tells of Aúa, an Inuit Shaman 

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... there was once a beautiful girl who did not want to marry.
She lived with her father and spurned all the men who came to her. One day, when her father was on the hunt, a man came with his Qajaq and went to her place. He called to the house, "He who does not want to marry is to come out." "It must be me," she thought, and she, who had always said no to all the requests, fetched her travel bag and went to the strange man in the boat. He sat high in the seat and had his snow glasses before his eyes. She sat on top of the Qajaq, and he rowed.

When they had gone out a bit, the man anchored on a small ice floe, and as he got off he began to mock her: "Do you see now that I'm sitting on a stool, do you see my eyes?" And the girl saw that his eyes were red and ugly and that he was small and only looked big because he was sitting on a stool. She burst into tears, but the man abandoned her. He was a storm bird in human form. Then he took her to his place on a high rock. Here she had to live in his tent of black seal skin. After a while, she got a child.

The girl's father worried about his daughter and went to the search. One fine day he found her on the kingfisher's rock, and when the bird went hunting, he freed his daughter. The storm-bird, however, discovered the fleeings, and soon took them. As the father saw him coming, he covered his daughter with a skin so that she was completely hidden. But the storm-bird circled the two and cried: "Let me see only the dear little hands." The father replied mockingly: "Is there a woman like you with little hands?" You are a stool, you are nothing but glasses. " Then the storm-bird flew around the boat again, and as he stalked over with stiff, spread wings, such a gust of wind came from his wings that the boat began to capsize. The father was afraid, and he threw his daughter overboard.

As she clung to the side of the Qajaq, he cut off the first limbs of her freezing fingers with the paddle. As they fell into the water, seals rose around the boat, and as Sedna still clung to the stumps of her fingers, the father slapped several limbs from his hands. Bearded seals and walruses appeared every time. Finally, she had only left her arm-stumps, could not hold on any longer, and went down.
She sank to the bottom of the sea, where she became the wife who takes care of the animals. We call them Takanalukarnaluq (the Woman of the Deep) or Sanna, Nuliakshuq or Sedna.
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From this transformation, Sedna has won her power and tremendousness as a sea goddess. From now on, she watches over the observance of the laws of Mother Earth, her circuits, and the way people deal with them. When people act against these laws, Sedna becomes angry, their hair becomes filly and tangled up, and the animals are caught in them. Now people are suffering.
Only when people recognize their irresponsibility and regret, and a shaman has covered the dangerous path to Sedna, combing her hair, and telling her of the repentance of men, can she soothe herself - if he can convince her!

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